GIFT OF
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
ROBERT PELLISSIER
Copyright, 1917
ADELINE PELLISSIER
INTRODUCTION
When Robert Pellissier gave his life to France, there were
still among his acquaintances some people who asked: "But
why did he enlist?" And they frankly admitted there were
some traits in his character which they did not understand.
Bearing in mind these queries, I endeavored to answer them in
a brief sketch written for the Williston Bulletin. This sketch,
as well as a Colleague s Tribute, is reproduced here as an intro-
duction to the Letters of a Chasseur a Pied.
A. P.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
ROBERT PELLISSIER
(1882-1916)
The Spirit of France as Portrayed in the Life of a Former
Williston Teacher Killed in the Somme Offensive
By ADELINE PELLISSIER
PROFESSOR OF FRENCH IN SMITH COLLEGE
On September 18th news reached us that Robert Pellissier,
of the French chasseurs a pied, had been killed in battle. To
his family his life has been and always will be the greatest in-
spiration. When I think of my brother's life, the picture which
rises before me is that of a young horseman coming at full
speed over hill and dale. He is neither dismayed nor halted
by any obstacles; he clears them all lightly and with a joyous
381054
iv Introduction
shout. At the end of his course, he meets death on a battle-
field, bravely fighting for France.
One of Robert's chief characteristics was his profound at-
tachment to his native land. He was born in 1882 at La
Ferriere-sous-Jougne, Doubs, in the Jura Mountains, and the
severe and almost tragic beauty of the fir tree forests, extending
for miles over the mountainsides, was so strongly stamped on
his memory that he always longed for fir clad mountains and
loved those landscapes best which came nearest to this type
of natural beauty.
Robert was the youngest of a family of seven children, and
as his father died when he was but six years old, in the course
of his life, when he came in closer contact now with one and
now with another of his brothers and sisters, he eagerly asked
them for his share of the moral guidance left them by their
father as their most precious heritage.
Robert's father, after having lived the greater part of his
life near Grenoble and in Lyons, had finally become superin-
tendent of a large wire and nail factory at La Ferriere. The
owners of the mill, the employees, the eight hundred workmen
constituted the whole settlement. As in this Roman Catholic
community our family was the only one which was of Huguenot
ancestry, and as the only Protestant church was several
miles distant, our father, in his own way, gave us religious
training. In summer, on Sunday, when the weather was fair,
he often took us to a part of the forest where old fir trees,
standing wide apart, left an open space as dark and mysterious
as a cathedral, and there he would read to us either a psalm
of David or a passage from the Gospels, and the reading over,
he would tell us how, in olden times, our Huguenot ancestors
had fought for their faith and how for centuries before the
great French Revolution, they had prayed and worshipped in
the wilderness, in some clearing or by the side of a stream.
Introduction v
Sometimes my father would tell us about the Huguenots of the
Cevennes, and sometimes he would describe the wanderings
of the Waldenses, following them from France into Italy and
from Italy back into France. But the whole trend of this
religious instruction was that external ceremonies are of but
little importance and that the spiritual side of worship is the
main thing.
An interesting story shows how this lesson was understood
by my sister Marie at the early age of six. Having been in-
vited with seven other little girls to hold the white ribbons
of a pall at a child's funeral, in the Catholic church, Marie re-
mained standing through the w r hole ceremony, although her little
friends kept tugging at her dress, to make her kneel down.
When they asked her the reason for such indecorous behavior,
Marie answered: "I worship in truth and in spirit." Five
years older than Robert, she handed down this conception of
moral courage to him. It must be added that our father felt
that whatever form of religion a man accepted he must live up
to it, and he always urged his men to keep in touch with their
church and with their priest, so broad was his spirit of religious
toleration.
My sister Marie, who is no longer living, was Robert's
earliest instructress. Long before Marie could read, she knew
some poetry by snatches. She had picked up this knowledge
at the breakfast table, for my father, who went to the mill at
six o'clock in the morning, returned home at eight, to have
breakfast with his family. From his office to the house, he
used to read and, after he had sat down at the table, he would
repeat to us, with fiery enthusiasm, the passages he most ad-
mired. Sometimes it was a passage from the work of a philoso-
pher or an historian, Pascal or Michelet, but still more fre-
quently he would recite a few stanzas from our great poets:
de Musset, de Vigny or Victor Hugo. Marie did not know
vi Introduction
the titles of the books, but she knew part of their contents.
She had no difficulty in singling out, on the shelves, the book
with the red binding which to her meant:
"Poete, prends ton luth, et me donne un baiser;
La fleur de I'eglantier sent ses bourgeons eclore,
Le printemps nait ce soir; les vents vont s'embraser;
Et la bergeronnette en attendant I'aurore,
Aux premiers buissons verts commence a se poser."
She could tell also that in another volume was to be found:
"J'aime le son du cor, le soir, au fond des bois.
Soit qu'il chante les pleurs de la biche aux abois,
Ou Vadieu du chasseur que I'echo faible accueille,
Et que le vent du nord porte de feutlle en feuille."
By Marie this poetical knowledge was imparted to Robert.
If I give these apparently insignificant details it is because,
in my opinion, they account for an early sense of discrimina-
tion between good and bad literature, a certain natural sense
of rhythm which in my brother seemed to be inborn. Every
now and then there was a sad and gloomy day in our home;
our father would come in and say with a look of profound
despair on his face: "Le ministere est tombe" the ministry
has fallen and, on such a day, even the younger children were
made to understand that the French Republic was like a ship
without a pilot; they firmly grasped the idea that beyond the
family there was France, and that France was in danger.
After the death of his father, Robert went with his mother
to Geneva, Switzerland, where they lived for a few years.
Robert often told me that during the years spent in Geneva, he
felt like an exile and as the suburb where his mother lived
Introduction vii
was very near the French frontier, he never spent a day without
at least putting his foot on French soil. The thing which de-
pressed Robert most was the turn of mind of the Genevese
children ; he saw their good qualities, but he found them morose.
Robert, as his father before him, had a keen sense of humor,
and he missed this spicy quality in the minds of his young class-
mates.
When his brother Paul came home after one year of military
service, Robert took with him long walking trips. The older
brother used to say : "You cannot begin too young to get trained
for military service," and the little brother was trained with a
vengeance. These walks were very interesting, for as Paul was
studying to become an architect, he would point out to his
brother, as they went, the characteristic lines in the style of
an old chateau, or of a Gothic church, and besides, in his knap-
sack there generally was a book of historical memoirs or somt
poems. In the Geneva days, Robert once or twice spent a vaca-
tion in the mountains with an aunt, or rather a cousin of his
mother, a lady of strong personality, who interested him in the
work she was doing.
As this aunt was suffering from a nervous breakdown, she
had gone to live in Aigle, a small town in the Swiss Alps. While
living there, she noticed that a number of boys, who were under
bad influence at home, were gradually becoming hopeless cases.
All this happened before the days of Junior Republics.
Mademoiselle T invited twelve or fifteen of these boys to
meet at her house in the evening; and while they were seated
around a bright fire on the hearth, she unfolded to them her
plan. They would meet at her house regularly, in order to sing
songs and roast chestnuts, and besides she would teach them to
make fishing nets, to weave baskets and to cane chairs. By the
spring the boys had become so proficient that they were able to
have a sale, and their goods sold so well that they had money
viii Introduction
enough to take a little trip. Robert was invited to go on one of
these expeditions. On the first day, it was discovered that some
one had eaten somebody's else luncheon and filled the basket with
dirt. On seeing this, the face of Mile. T - fell, and she
showed such bitter disappointment that every boy stood perfectly
still. As nobody admitted having done the deed, Mile. T
spoke with much force, reminding the boys that they formed an
association, that they had to live up to the name of "fideliens"
or "faithful," that the F they were wearing on their sleeves
stood for "franc, fidele et fort" and that henceforth, if any of
them did anything wrong, he would have to admit his guilt, be
judged by his comrades, and if found guilty, the penalty would
be the removal of the letter F from his sleeve until he had
redeemed himself by exemplary behavior.
Robert was greatly impressed by this scene, and to the end of
his life he kept, up a correspondence with this aunt, and he often
inquired about her boys. With the exception of one, all the boys
turned out well. The "fideliens" used to write an account of
their trips and Robert used to like to read it. This aunt was
to Robert a great inspiration.
During the same year, Robert had another thrilling ex-
perience, of a more worldly order. My sister Marie had be-
come acquainted with her next-door neighbor, a very attractive
Italian girl of twenty, who was even then a great singer. She
gave the children tickets for a presentation of "Carmen."
Robert, who was fond of music, was at first delighted, but
when he saw the Italian singer, in the part of the heroine,
misusing her influence, he became indignant and wanted to
leave the hall. For a whole week after that performance he
refused to speak to the singer, saying she was a bad character.
The singer, much amused, said it was the greatest compliment
she had ever received. Gradually Robert began to understand
the difference between real life and its artistic presentation, and
Introduction ix
he saw how hard an artist has to work to come near perfection.
Life's work, in this instance, was presenting itself to him under
an entirely new aspect.
Several years later, in 1896, as Robert's mother felt very
much depressed by the death of one of her sons, it was suggested
by Robert's sister, that they both come to live with her in
Brooklyn, because she thought the company of her growing
daughters would be good for Robert. In course of time, the
three nieces less than ten years younger than Robert became
very dear to him, and his brother-in-law felt toward him as
would a father. Robert himself made all the arrangements
for the sea voyage and it was certainly not by mere accident
that the travellers crossed the ocean on a steamer belonging
to the French Line. While on board, Robert had his four-
teenth birthday, on the twelfth of May. On that day Robert
made a vow: he would master French history and become
thoroughly acquainted with the works of all the great French
historians, past and present. This vow was kept.
Robert's first summer in America was spent in the White
Mountains; he wished to enter school in the fall and he did
not know a word of English. In the kindness of her heart,
his sister suggested a private school, the Froebel Academy,
which was connected with a kindergarten. Kindergarten!
this word filled Robert's heart with anguish. He, a boy of
fourteen, who had recently taken such a solemn vow, enter
a school affiliated with a kindergarten ! He resolved to enter
the public school in the fall. He would study grammar by
himself, pick up every day English from the conversations he
heard, and study one book thoroughly. With the help of one
of his sisters who was a teacher, he read and translated Dickens'
"A Tale of Two Cities." After making both a literal and
idiomatic translation, often covering several pages, he would
commit to memory the whole passage. In the fall he entered
x Introduction
the grammar school; it is true that in English he ranked
seventy-third, but by June he ranked third. He was then able
to skip one year of the grammar school and enter the high
school. After the third year he decided to make up the work
of the fourth year during the summer and enter the Bridge-
water Normal School in the fall. With occasional help from
our neighbor in the White Mountains, who was a professor
of botany at Wellesley College, with a good text-book and a
microscope he made up one year's work in botany. He found
relief from this rather strenuous work by going on long walk-
ing trips with his brother-in-law. It was his brother-in-law
who taught him how to play tennis, and to swim, and as Mr.
A was a professor of history, Robert would often go
to him for advice.
Robert took a four-year course in the Bridgewater Normal
School; he remained there from 1899 to 1903. Mr. A
thought that Robert in attending this school would have a good
opportunity to get acquainted with both boys and girls. In the
Bridgewater Normal School Robert met with no difficulties
except when he wished to be excused from taking a course in
beginner's French. The teacher of French, who happened to
be a German, would not believe that Robert was a French boy
and he made him take the course. To offset the penance of tak-
ing beginner's French with a German, Robert decided to devote
one hour to talking to himself on different subjects, in his
native tongue, in order not to lose his command of French.
Robert specialized in sciences, and, at the end of his course
he won a Harvard scholarship. In 1903 he entered the Senior
Class of the Lawrence Scientific School.
Robert felt on coming of age that a man should earn his
own living, and he set about to do it. But as he was following
an almost entirely scientific course, he found that, beginning
with the correction of French books at six o'clock in the morn-
Introduction xi
ing, he was kept almost constantly occupied until eleven o'clock
at night. Fortunately, during that year Robert had as a neigh-
bor a Bridgewater friend, a very witty young Irishman, and
there was, between them, many a bout enlivened by flashes of
French and Irish wit. They often enjoyed retaliating on some
young gentlemen, who, having entered Harvard for the life and
sports, occasionally taunted them for having entered the Uni-
versity "by the back door." But on Commencement Day, the
French and Irish friends after experiencing a few seconds of
anxiety, on not rinding their names on the first page of the
programme, were greatly relieved and thrilled with joy when,
on turning the page, they read them on the Honor List. After
graduating from Harvard, Robert taught at Williston for sev-
eral years (1904-1908), intending to earn the funds he needed
for the study of medicine. Of these years I shall say nothing,
because another has kindly undertaken to do it. Let it be said
that Robert's health having given out after his first year's
teaching he was obliged to give up his cherished plan of study-
ing medicine and devote all his energy, first to getting well
and then to preparing for advanced work in an entirely differ-
ent line. On his way to the United States Robert had stopped
in Paris and met his cousins; brief as it was, this visit made
on him a strong impression, and he often said to me that the
;aim he had set before himself was to do, in a scientific line,
as brilliant work as his cousin, G. P., had done in
literary criticism. When Robert returned to Harvard in 1908
he had brushed up his German, studied by himself French lit-
erature, and besides had acquired, with the help of one of his
sisters, a knowledge of Italian and Spanish sufficient to enable
him to do graduate work in Romance Languages. He took
the Degree of M. A. at Harvard in 1909, and he was given
for the following year an acting instructorship at Leland Stan-
ford University. As he was in charge of only two courses he
xii Introduction
was able to keep on with his graduate work, and at the end
of the college year, in May, he went to Mexico City, where
he spent the summer studying, being the guest of his brother
John, a civil engineer. Robert had a horse placed at his dis-
posal by the company with which his brother was working,
and every week he spent a few days with his brother in camp.
While in Mexico, Robert acquired a practical knowledge of
Spanish, and he worked in the public library. For exercise,
he took long horseback rides and climbed high mountains. It
was also a great joy for him to become well acquainted with a
brother he knew so slightly and who was to become very dear
to him. In 1910 Robert returned to Harvard to complete
his preparation for the degree of Ph.D. For two summers he
taught in the Harvard Summer School and worked on his thesis.
His subject was "The Influence of French Literature on
Spanish Literature of the Eighteenth Century." From 1911
to 1914 Robert taught in Leland Stanford University.
To complete his studies he had in between taken two trips
to Europe; in 1905 he went to France by way of Italy and in
1913 he went, by way of France, to Spain, a trip which he
thoroughly enjoyed. In the summer of 1914 his brother-in-law
arranged to meet him in the West and they went on extensive
walking trips in the California Sierras. Robert was looking
rorward with great pleasure to the work he was going to do in
the following year; he had been appointed Assistant Professor
of Romance Languages and he was to offer a course in com-
parative literature and one in the history of civilization. Writ-
ing to me, in the spring of that year, he said he could not con-
ceive of any offer which could induce him to leave the work
which he expected to enjoy so thoroughly. But the war broke
out and, without any hesitation, although he was not called
to the colors, he immediately sailed for Europe on the first
steamer which conveyed home French reservists. Robert had
Introduction xiii
been excused from military service because he had come to the
United States before he was fourteen and had not visited France
more than twice between the ages of twenty and thirty. His
brother-in-law had even suggested that he might become an
American citizen, but Robert felt that he could not renounce the
country of his birth, at a time when France would certainly
need the help of all her children. He was convinced that
there would be a war, sooner or later, and he had resolved to
offer his life to France.
He had so constantly trained himself in all kinds of physical
exercises that, after two months of military drill, he was not
only placed with the men of his class, but with the elite. He
became a chasseur a pied. The chasseurs are the men who, on
account of the stubborn defense they made in the Vosges Moun-
tains and in Alsace, have been called by the Germans "blue
devils." One of the men belonging to the same company said
when writing to a friend "M. Pellissier est un homme tres
courageux; je me suis trouve avec lui dans plusieurs combats,
i! est toujours le premier."
Robert was happy that his fate took him to Alsace, for as a
boy he had read with delight the novels of Erckmann-Chatrian.
two Alsatians, who, in their novels, have described the great
wars of the first Napoleon. Robert was delighted to tread
the ground where Madame Therese had once passed. He was
deeply moved when an old Alsatian woman told him "Enfin
vous voila il y a longtemps qu'on vous attendait." He was
touched when, in Alsatian homes, he was treated like a son,
and his hostess refused to accept any pay for his room or for
the services rendered. Robert was naturally of very gentle dis-
position and he often felt like the captain of whom he said
"He wept when he saw the slaughter of Germans, for young
men are young men, even when they are Germans."
Robert was wounded in the shoulder near Steinbach, at the
xiv Introduction
end of January, 1915. After spending four months in the hos-
pital he found that although his wound was healed he could
not carry a knapsack. He therefore resolved to take the exam-
ination for admittance to Saint-Cyr, the French West Point.
He passed the examinations and spent four months in Saint-
Maixent, a military school for officers. He went back to the
front with the grade of sergeant and, on several occasions, he
took the place of a lieutenant for several weeks at a time. It
was during this period that Robert heard, with profound grief,
that one of his former Williston pupils had fallen on the
battlefield of Loos. When mentioning the sad news, in one
of his letters to me, he could not help saying "Pauvre petit."
Robert felt very grateful to the Americans for what they
have done for France, not only as volunteers and ambulance
drivers but also for children orphaned by the war. With pro-
found admiration he spoke of the work done in this line by
"Life." He was also grateful for the friends in America who
refuted the unfortunate statement of Miss Jane Addams's that
soldiers when they attack are drunk. To a friend who asked
him what to make of such a statement he answered "No, don't
believe what Miss Jane Addams is telling or rather what she
has been told. French soldiers don't get drunk each time they
go into a bayonet charge. I took part in one, and not only
had we nothing in our cans except water, but we had had
nothing to eat since breakfast (and it was two o'clock in the
afternoon), we had no supper at all, and breakfast at ten o'clock
the next morning. I saw a charge start, right from the very
part of the trench where I sat, and what struck me was the
perfectly cold determination of the men who were to my left
and to my right and in front of me. Those who cut lanes
through our wires hit rhythmically and with perfect aim." In
another letter Robert explained whence, in his opinion, springs
the strength and determination of the French soldiers: "The
Introduction xv
one decent thing which may come out of this horrible mess may
be the final discrediting of war in Europe and perhaps else-
where. It is an idea which keeps up French soldiers at present.
One often hears them say: 'Well, whatever happens to us,
our children at least will be freed from militarism and all
allied curses.' >:
I have tried to show in these pages what were the influences
which helped give to Robert his stamp of character: his deep
religious feeling, his moral point of view, his sincerity, his per-
severance, his gift of adaptation, and the fairness of mind which
enabled him to give everyone his due, his gratefulness towards
the people who had helped him, his sympathy for Americans,
and overshadowing everything else, his devotion to France. Of
him may truly be said : "Qui patitur vincit."
From the Williston Bulletin.
xvi Introduction
A COLLEAGUE'S TRIBUTE
By SIDNEY NELSON MORSE
Professor Pellissfer, who was recently killed in the Battle
of the Somme, taught four years at Williston. He came here
in 1904 direct from Harvard with the enthusiasm of a bril-
liant student. In Harvard the study of science appealed to him
as well as the study of language. For a little time during his
course there he was undecided which field to enter. Language,
especially the French to which he was bred and born, he had
a predilection for; it claimed his first attention, but science
fascinated and challenged him to reveal her secrets. So in-
terested did he become in biology during his college course that
he was glad of the opportunity to teach it in Williston, his
first year, in addition to his major courses in the French depart-
ment, of which he later became the head and sole teacher.
Perhaps the number of his classes this first year, and the de-
vitalizing work of correcting test papers overtaxed his strength.
The following year, 1905, he found it necessary, owing to pul-
monary trouble, to give up teaching for a time and seek bodily
and mental refreshment. Westhampton air, a rigorous diet,
horseback riding, and an indomitable will completely restored
his health, much to the surprise and joy of his many solicitous
friends. The fight he made against insidious tuberculosis was
heroic. It was an earne c t of the valor which for two resolute
years just closed he manifected on the Western front in France.
In 1906 he was made head of the French department, continu-
ing his work two years. During this time he enlarged and ex-
tended the courses in French. He added third year French.
In 1908 he resigned to take a post-graduate course for his
doctor's degree in Romance languages at Harvard, which
Introduction xvii
opened the way to an instructorship in Leland Stanford Uni-
versity.
In a general way what may be said of all good teachers may
be said emphatically of him. He was faithful, conscientious,
painstaking, helpful, and resourceful. But he was more than
that. His ambition was to excel. His standards for himself
and for his pupils were high. He was a zealous worker for
the first-best and exacted high grade work from his pupils.
His perfect command of English of the rational phrase, yet rich
in allusion, enabled him to impart his discriminating knowledge
of French.
In temperament he was intense. To his recreation, to his
social intercourse, to his study, he brought an ardor that was
contagious; and to his teaching he brought a keen appreciation
of the accuracy, flexibility, beauty, and strength of the French
tongue.
As a man, simple in life and warm of heart, he was genuine,
plain and unostentatious. All shams he detested. Veneer and
gloss without the substance had no attraction for him.
He was a knightly spirit. He loved honor; he was jealous
of his honor and of the honor of his friends. In vivacity, wit,
and repartee he had no easy second. At heart deeply generous
and sympathetic in impulse, with a seeming abruptness of man-
ner which was merely the necessity of husbanding time, so
active was he, he was quick to discern a need and meet it. He
unerringly recognized true worth where it was to be found,
and though at times he did not reveal his real self to those who
did not know him, yet to his friends and intimates he was al-
ways the trusted comrade, the cherished companion, the loyal
friend.
His character, his career, his life but even more, his death
for his country are a beneficent inspiration.
From the Williston Bulletin.
xviii Introduction
LETTERS FROM THE ARMY CHAPLAIN.
Passage from a letter to Mme. S :
Clery, September 6th, 1916.
I had seen him a short time ago and he had been present
at a church service I had organized. I knew he held a trusted
post (he being the connecting link between two battalions) ;
he was very much exposed and his battalion has suffered heav-
ily. In the course of many a conversation I had with him,
I had learned how to appreciate in its delicacy and sensitive-
ness this outwardly reserved soul. He felt keenly the sadness
of war. He saw the ravages made in the souls of men as well
as the material destruction. He said to me: ''Don't let peo-
ple speak to me about the fine influence of war about its re-
generating power." But from a moral standpoint himself he had
grown. One could not help being impressed by his faithful-
ness to duty, by the dignity of his moral character, by the
keenness of his insight. As he was a thoroughly kind man,
all those who knew him loved him.
To Mme. S :
I dare say that by now you have received the letter I addressed
to you at Vence. Grievous letter in which I told you of my
fear with regard to my friend, Robert Pellissier. At that time
I still had some hope, but with my last visit to his battalion
this hope vanished. Your dear cousin has fallen a victim to
his high conception of duty, for it was because he had this
high sense of duty that he had been entrusted with a delicate
mission. His lieutenant selected him to stay the last man,
Introduction xix
after his battalion was relieved from duty, so that he might
give the countersign to the company which was to occupy their
sector. Generally this duty devolves on an officer. He was
to be appointed 2d lieutenant (nobody understood why he had
not yet been promoted to that grade). He was the trusted
man of his commandant. What happened while he was alone?
I cannot tell. One thing is certain, he was shot through the
chest by the ball of a mitrailleuse. Having been carried away
by stretcher bearers, which I was not able to identify, he
breathed his last a short time after reaching the ambulance.
Wounded at 6 o'clock in the morning, he died on the same day
and he was buried in the cemetery which is close by the evacua-
tion ambulance of his sector's division.
I had the bitter regret of missing him. When I inquired
about him from the men of his battalion, on the morning of
the 29th, they did not yet know that he had been wounded.
They said: "He is assuring the connection; he will be here
presently." As he was not coming I went on. He must have
been carried away to our stretcher bearers' post, while I had
gone to another battalion. That is why I did not see him
again. However, shortly before that time, I had a long con-
versation with him, and with great calm he had spoken to me
of his eventual death. He assured me he had no presenti-
ment; he added: "I have no illusions, I know perfectly well
that I may not return." He asked me to write to you, and
I wrote as soon as I could find out something about him ; and
to his brother, I shall write to-night.
He has shown the most remarkable sang-froid. He was
understood and loved. The testimony of his men and of his
chiefs is unanimous. I was moved when I witnessed the emo-
tion they showed on hearing of his death. They thought he
was only wounded. The commandant of his company told me
that he had been glad to think he was going so soon to have
xx Introduction
him as an officer. They already considered him as such. A
lieutenant told me that he considered him as a brother. One
of the chasseurs said: "I had never before met a man like
him. The nobility of his character, the generosity of his heart,
his faithfulness to duty had won for him the sympathy of all.
They admired his intellect and his uprightness. He was a
complete man. His chiefs had asked that he be awarded the
military medal, for during the recent encounters he had shown
that he had the qualities of a leader, and an absolute contempt
for danger. He has upheld the morale of his men who placed
in him absolute confidence. I did not even know that he had
been wounded, and as I had seen his battalion at the time when
it was relieved from duty, I rejoiced at the thought that he
had escaped; but when in my turn I was relieved from duty,
when I went to look over the list of names in the ambulance, I
found his name accompanied by the cruel word (dead). I
went to the cemetery and when, by the last glimmer of twi-
light, I read on a cross the name of Robert Pellissier, all the
anguish of this horrible war filled my heart. On his tomb
I prayed for his companions at arms. As for him, I feel that
he is far above, in God's own radiance. How I wish that I
could have been of more comfort to him! But he was a strong
man. He had given his life. May such sacrifices hasten the
time of deliverance for our dear crucified country.
H. MONNIER,
Aumonier Protestant Militaire.
Groupe des Brancardiers Divisionnaires,
secteur 190.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
New York, August 25th, 1914.
ToB
This is rather serious business. I don't know what use the
Republic can make of me but "all men are needed" is the con-
stant cry so, by Jove, I see no way out which does not mean the
giving up of the prerogatives and privileges which go with the
name man synonymous with gentleman.
2 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
(In a letter written the day before sailing)
Translated from the diary.
SUNDAY, August 30th, 1914, on board La France.
Very quiet trip so far, neither pitching nor tossing during
the first two days. Really a pleasure trip. Nobody worries and
yet we heard on Friday that Roubaix, Lille and Valenciennes
had been taken by the Germans, pretty hard blow. One of
the ladies on board was weeping as if her heart would break.
I got acquainted with a young Frenchman from Calais, a
tulle weaver by trade; he had left Paterson, New Jersey, his
brother having already joined the first army. Still under the grip
of the emotion of departure he said on the first day "I should
always have felt the pangs of remorse if I had staid away."
Later during the trip he seemed quiet, contented, in good humor.
He is about twenty-four years old, and had not done any military
service having been excused on account of his prolonged stay in
a foreign country. He introduced me to some of his friends
who were third class passengers ; three of them shirked military
duty, but now they have enlisted so as to have their share in the
dance. One is married and has three children, another one,
twenty-one years old, very strongly built is the son of a saloon
keeper. His parents did not wish him to go, but he went after
considerable hesitation. The third one, a short red-haired man,
with a goatee, was very bright and lively ; he often came up to
the second class. The two others got drunk on the first night,
but he did not.
WEDNESDAY. Great uproar in the canteen : a fellow, wearing
spectacles and snarling his r's, was making an awful racket. He
was a Parisian and was trying to be smart while being drunk.
He attempted, without much success, to sing funny songs. On the
following day he was in the lock-up for besides creating consider-
able disturbance on board he had made the mistake of embarking
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 3
without a ticket. Nobody will ever know the reason why he
came on board. He came to accompany some friends with
whom he had just scraped an acquaintance and who did not
want to come along, but who nevertheless took up a collection
so that they might buy for him a third class ticket and thus free
him from his cell. But people were not willing to have him in
the third class. He knew too much. Besides beautiful songs, he
could speak English, Spanish and German. They teased him
considerably on account of his remarkable linguistic knowledge,
but finally they relented. Another man named C is as much
a Frenchman as I am. He has lived in the United States for
ages and has forgotten a good deal of his French. He is the very
type of the American business man, he speaks out clearly and
firmly, wishes to have reserved for his special use the things of
this earthly world, the good tangible things. His friends gave
him a great banquet just before he left and of course he feels
all the worse for it. You can see that he is in the habit of
spending money freely like some of my American friends, but he
does not do it quite so gracefully. He has enlisted in order to do
his duty towards his family. At heart he is more American than
French. Gestures, the lack of straight lines, put him in a state
of exasperation. Above all he likes the correct Anglo-Saxon atti-
tude. But after all he is very loyal and sincere. I understand
perfectly well why one does prefer shoes of American make to
the long spatula shaped shoes of our countrymen, a smooth
shaven face to a thin beard, etc. These feelings I have shared
many a time.
At the table, the saviour of the Parisian merry maker indulges
in rather queer jokes. At his left a very lively little French
woman who, although in my opinion she enjoyed the jokes of
,her neighbors a little too much, seemed to be a capable and
kindly woman. Her husband, a sergeant, left her to take pas-
sage on the Sant' Anna, if I am not mistaken. She was going
4 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
to meet him. Before starting he said to her "Well, my dear,
my country first, my family next." She was peeved, but all the
same she was proud of her man who is a sergeant.
Then there is also Mr. Le F., who was a cook at Sherry's,
very nice fellow, good-looking, polite, very active and quick in
his motions. "I may lose my life," he said, "but I don't care a
rap." This remark he made with a feeling of deep conviction.
His patriotism seems perfectly genuine and deep rooted.
With me in the cabin there was a Spaniard, he had just left
Mexico where he had been through pretty hard experiences; he
had to serve in turn under the federals and under Villa, in
order to save his skin. Had many narrow escapes.
TUESDAY, September 1st. Through the heavy mist we
clearly caught a glimpse of the Lizzard and a little later we
were saluted by an English cruiser; after having come very
near us, she sailed off and while she disappeared through the
mist, her crew shouted hurrah. We saw fishing smacks in
large numbers.
On the occasion of the last dinner, we had champagne, then
the Marseillaise was sung and also the Chant du Depart. After
this celebration I found it hard to sleep and besides at 2 A. M.
my Spaniard turned on all the lights and began to smoke.
Then he began the story of his life and the narration lasted
till 3.30.
WEDNESDAY, September 2d. When we reached Havre, the
sea was perfectly smooth. We crossed Le Perou crowded with
Belgian soldiers, the ship being northbound. In the city we saw
a good many English infantry and troops of English artillery
men passed by singing.
In the harbor, a destroyer, several yachts turned into hospital-
boats. The hotels and the Navigation buildings were so many
hospitals. The tramcars had women conductors.
A woman jumped into a car, then turned around to call back
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 5
to some one in the crowd: "His lieutenant and second lieuten-
ant have been killed but he came out unscathed."
At military headquarters they put Admiral Charnier's stamp
on my recruiting ticket. This ticket was to serve me as a
passport. But at the station they refused to check my valise
on its presentation. I lost my temper and bought a second-class
ticket without asking for any reduction at all. That is why,
instead of riding on the military train, I took the Paris express
which, after crossing Dreux, reaches the station at the Invalides.
At Havre, I could not leave my valise at the station as the
parcel's room was full. I went to the Hotel de France, a most
untidy place. While we were at dinner three gentlemen wear-
ing sombreros entered the room shouting in English: "The
Far West is coming look out. Nobody paid the least attention
to them. When I took the train, I was fortunate enough to
find a seat in a second-class compartment, where I met again
the cook from Sherry's; with him was one of the shirkers and
a very mild man from Nice. There were also two comfortable
looking business men who were going to Paris to remonstrate
"At Havre, two wagon loads of fish were being detained. Now,
the ice is thawing, the fish will be spoilt." They were com-
pletely absorbed by their business these two heavy-built civil-
ians; wonder how much the war is going to cost them. And
yet one of them has several nephews at the front and one has
just been killed he was only twenty years old killed in Bel-
gium. "The old man has not yet dared tell the mother; she
must be allowed to keep hoping a while longer" for a few
minutes he looked very much moved ; then he resumed his
conversation on business. Such was the attitude of Gargantua
after the death of his wife.
On the way, all the bridges were guarded nothing hap-
pened until we reached Rouen but after that we had to wait
and wait. We crossed troop trains and we caught up with
6 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
trains filled with cattle or wheat. At one of the crossings, we
saw an armored car mounted with a quick-firing gun. On a
train transporting troops from Rouen to Besancpn and beyond,
I saw written on the sides with chalk: "Excursion train for
Berlin." There were green branches around the car windows.
A soldier called out to us, "We are going to cut off William's
ears."
Strong guards at all the bridges and tunnels. At the stop-
ping places, which were numerous, there were only women and
children to be seen. Almost everywhere the harvest had been
gathered in, but on the Granville line people were still taking in
hay. At one station a woman and child w r ere selling pears ; they
went like hot-cakes. Those who were not quick enough to get
some, felt their mouths water. At the next station, magnificent
pears and in plenty. Two small boys are in charge of the sup-
ply. Impossible to buy one; they are all for the soldiers. But
the boys are ready to do a good turn, so they fetch some cold
water for the travellers.
The nearer we come to Paris the harder it is to proceed.
We stop for one and a half hours between Saint-Cyr and Ver-
sailles. Cattle trains keep coming, trains full of cavalry horses
and of war material disappear into the night. And then, there
are trains full of Parisians who are skipping off. Poltroons?
My fellow travellers become indignant; there is much fault-
finding. As a matter of fact, the travellers are women and
children who are very wise to get out. At Versailles crowds of
"reservistes" are very much put out because there is no train
to take them to Brittany, where they are expected to train the
recruits. The 1914 class has just been called to the colors, so the
- train is full of young boys who are far from being sad. "O the
fun of it!" "Just fancy, if I reach the barracks on time, by
to-morrow I may don the uniform."
We reached the Invalides' station at about 10 o'clock. No
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 7
taxi to be had. We had to foot it the whole way, carrying our
valises mild fun Not a soul on the Place de la Concorde,
but searchlights cross their streams of light above our heads
bombs having been dropped there the night before by a German
aeroplane.
Towards the end I found a taxi, but there were no restaur-
ants finally I got two sardines at the station's restaurant,
that was all.
Rather trying but interesting day.
On the train people were talking mainly about German atro-
cities, murder of women and children. That is why the pas-
sengers did not seem to mind it very much if the turcos were
acquiring the habit of cutting off the heads of their enemies.
Every passenger knew of some one who had heard that "So-and-
so had seen a turco carrying the head of a German in his mili-
tary bag." "Well, it serves them right. Why do the Germans
murder our wounded soldiers?"
THURSDAY. Carrying my luggage, I reach the Lyons' sta-
tion. Paris is almost empty. Two-thirds of the shops are
closed on account of mobilization. The newspapers are reduced
to one single sheet of the usual size. Nothing to read except
the official announcement, stating in a few simple words the
fact that the seat of government has been removed from Paris,
without any other indication. The nation is urged to remain
calm, heroic, etc. it could not possibly be quieter just now,
although it is rumored that the Prussians have entered the
Compiegne forest. We are far from having as full news as in
America; the situation is unchanged nothing to say about the
Northeast, nothing about the Vosges the enemy is advancing
slowly, south of the Belgian frontier. No details; to gain
time means that in the end we shall get the upper hand. Place
confidence in the government. The Prussians' advance does
not mean anything. General Pau is in charge outside of Paris ;
8 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Gallieni inside. As signs of a state of war, I notice the patrols
and the statue of Strasbourg covered with wreathes of flowers
and with flags. The city is as quiet as it is in the middle of
August ; it looks as deserted as on a public holiday, when every-
one has gone to spend the day in the country neither rolls nor
crescents are to be had in the restaurants. The Latin Quarter
empty, but in the Luxembourg garden, children are playing,
as usual, and by the St. Michel bridge, a workingman is
angling; some boys are doing the same. Madame F. is going
to remain in Paris; she has seen a taube (she pronounces tob)
and she is proud of it. She tells me of a conversation she has
had with a farmer from the North, now a refugee in Paris.
He had spent four days in his neighbor's cellar, from which
he could hear the shrieks of terror of the women and children
ill-treated by the Prussians. When he came out, there were
heaps of corpses on the street. People looking at them would
say, "Ah! voila le petit a un tel," "Void la petite
a un autre, la femme de celui-ci, la fille de celui-la."
The train for Besancpn leaves at 6.05.
At the Lyons' station, a regular mob. Women, children,
baskets of all kinds and description. Whole families seated on
the floor, munching crusts of bread, urchins howling, the women
look harrassed in the south-bound trains, there are more people
than seats. It looks like New York, or rather, Ellis Island.
One cannot leave Paris without a passport; it takes consider-
able time to get one, if one is dressed as a civilian.
A number of working people have all their belongings heaped
on small push carts. No panic, but the awful lassitude of
women and children who have been kept waiting for hours.
To reach the train is hard enough, but to get into it is quite
another proposition. The cars are jammed full.
At last my papers are vised and loaded with valises I look
everywhere for a seat. No such thing to be had. Every com-
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 9
partment is crowded. A woman, almost crushed to death with
her two children, asks me if I am going to Besangon. Her
husband is stationed there. Sergeant Carre of the Thirtieth.
Please look him up. She had not heard from him for some
time. Heaven knows if he is still alive? She is leaving for
Savoy and she hopes I may see him.
After numberless attempts I give up the hope of finding a
seat and climb into the baggage car with two soldiers in uni-
form and about a dozen of the Blues, class of 1914. We are
very comfortable in the baggage car plenty of room, plenty
of air, but when we reach the next station, they want to put
n more trunks. The baggage-master loses his temper; he
wants to make a clean sweep. We lose our temper ; we shout
then everybody calms down, the trunks do not get in and no-
body steps out. At Melun and at Fontainebleau the Blues
leave the car. Only five or six passengers remain, and the bag-
gage-master, now very much reconciled to the situation, listens
to the conversation.
A chauffeur, an old wizened reserviste, tells what he knows
he knows a great deal. German shells do not burst, or at
least only two out of ten. He knew a soldier who was struck
by one falling on his arm, got a broken arm, that was all.
Another had his knapsack put out of commission in the same
way.
On the other hand, the German mitrailleuses are terrible,
but fortunately our seventy-five is worse. Turcos carrying
the heads of Prussian soldiers in their bags? Now come, that is
arrant nonsense, nonsense I say; a head never, but ears which
have been cut off, that is a fact; that happens and not infre-
quently. The turcos have long knives; first they use the
bayonet, then the knife; it is done before you have time to
say Jack Robinson. And the English, they too have
knives. He keeps on with this kind of conversation, but he
10 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
sinks lower and lower in my estimation. At Montereau, where
we wait fully an hour, he disappears. Conversation with the
train conductor, the engineer and the chauffeur. They claim
the service has been fair and, in spite of the exodus from Paris,
it is still pretty good, but it is hard work. Yesterday, near
Montereau a train jumped off the tracks, a train of wounded
soldiers was thrown into a ditch three killed wounded re-
wounded. It is heartrending. Of course, there was not a
word of it in the papers. There is nothing worth reading in
the papers. We have to take them as they are, but it is up
to us to complain. After having spent four hours in the baggage
car, 1 found a seat in a first-class car. Three passengers:
a mother-in-law and her daughter had just left Champagne
near Fontainbleau, the general staff had been there, trenches
were to be dug, houses and forest razed. At last I understand
the reason why so many people are fleeing. They are the un-
fortunate inhabitants of the suburbs, who had to abandon their
homes; in many cases they were given one hour to pack and
go and they were strictly held to it. In most cases, they had
to leave everything behind: furniture, linen, etc. One hears
descriptions which are at once heartrending and comical: hens
had to be given away, fruit and pigs to the French soldiers,
of course, so as to keep these windfalls from the Germans.
In this train, no distinction is made between first, second
and third classes. Passengers ride where they can. My friend,
the great talker, whom I had lost sight of since Montereau,
was there in this first class car, very comfortably settled, and
he was telling all his stories over again: the shells which fail
to burst, the ears, etc., etc. At last he leaves the car at Sens.
In the car with me there is also a concert hall singer
who has travelled she has seen the Cossaks at work, in them
alone she trusts. Of course, she left Paris in the auto of a
Colonel for reference, see Roxane in Cyrano she is very
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 1 1
much annoyed, indeed, because she has to carry on her arm her
field mouse fur coat which was at the dressmaker's to be re-
modelled and now it hangs together by pins only. In addition
to this trial, she has been sitting on the wine bottle hidden
in her lunch basket. Of course, she felt something cool, she
could not imagine what it could possibly be; now she under-
stands, and we too understand. Her brother, who was to go
to Nice, Marseilles, Bougie, Algiers, on a very lucrative tour,
is now sound asleep. He told us that his grief was generally
keen, but that it did not last long. He evidently told the truth
One hour before we reach Dijon a large number of reservistes
take the train. They had been sent home, then recalled. Just
now, everybody is called to the colors.
FRIDAY. I reached Dijon about ten in the morning, as I
had not slept a wink during the night, as I had had hardly
anything to eat and still less to drink, I was all in. The town
was overcrowded : immigrants, refugees, soldiers. No room to
be had at any hotel. As I did not feel equal to continuing my
trip without having had some rest, I tried to find a room in a
private house. It took time, but at least I found one over a
bakery; while the owner of the shop was preparing the room,
I went in search of a lunch place. The heat was unbearable.
On my way back from the restaurant, I noticed that the houses
seemed to be dancing up and down; I leaned against the wall
and I reached the house just in time to escape falling full length
on the ground.
My room was on the fourth floor, I dropped on the bed and
slept like a log half an hour later I woke up the bed was
black with bedbugs this sight made me feel as weak as a
new-born babe, my heart beating wildly. I threw the eider-
down on the floor and there I tried to snatch a few minutes'
rest, for now there were only fleas left and one or two bedbugs.
On the streets some soldiers were marching by, and I said
12 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
to myself : "Never in the world shall I be equal to this kind
of life. I am a fool." I placed four chairs in a row and, using
my coat as a pillow, I stretched myself full length on this couch,
but the bedbugs were still undaunted. Along the feet of the
chairs- they climbed as if they were storming a position. And
yet, I was able to get a little rest. I went out and I spent a very
unpleasant quarter of an hour in the park, which is, neverthe-
less, a very pretty spot and has the general appearance of all
French parks between 5 and 6 P. M. I still felt shaky, alarm-
ingly so. A brilliant idea: I got a shave, a hair cut and a
shampoo at a first-class hairdresser. It gave me a chance to
recline for a litle while and the parasites had a cruel time under
a most generous alcohol shower. The hairdresser was a very
nice fellow. He noticed the condition I was in, told me of a
room I might secure, and, thanks to him, I had a night's rest,
which put me on my feet again. Very nice people at Mme.
Louise (one franc a night) most cordial welcome. It would
be hard to find anywhere people who could have helped me
out more graciously than the hairdresser and his friends. On
the other hand, the baker's wife also had the best possible
intentions.
I leave for Besangon at 12.39. A young woman and he.
son say goodbye to the father, who for several days has car-
ried foodstuffs to the firing line. He has been through a good
deal, but he does not boast about it; he is a fine man, not at
all like the chauffeur. His wife casually drops the word dan-
ger. He gets provoked. Personally he is not running any
danger; if he were younger, he would enjoy his new occupation;
but, of course, he is forty-two. He added that up to this time
the soldiers at the front had been well supplied with food stuffs.
Two women, one of them coming from Choisy-le-Roi, have
been obliged to leave their homes; one of them was courageous
and, although she gave way to her feeling of discontent, she
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 13
realized that there was nothing to be done. "Just think, our
furniture which had come from Cochinchina, the mahogany
commode which was priceless, but if a figure had to be given,
it was certainly worth 4,000 francs, to say the least. And
the house they had had such a hard time in building, and now
her husband had joined the army." The other woman was
rather timid, she moaned and repeated, "We have been be-
trayed." Then, after lamenting considerably, she gave two
pennies to the child of the other woman.
A fat travelling man is sure that the Germans are all in.
He repeats it over and over again.
A wizened little old man, who has been travelling four
nights without a ticket, tells of a great many happenings, put-
ting on them his own interpretation. After leaving Chartres,
he saw troops without number and navy guns sent northward
to Verdun, most likely ; all the money he has is seven francs. He
fought in 1870 and he shows his deeply scarred hand; he also
explains that in a battle he lost a tiny piece of the fattest part
of his leg, without at first realizing the loss; only, the battle
being over, he too felt a certain coolness, and he realized that
the entire seat of his trousers was gone.
I reached Besangon by four, finding in town a tranquillity
almost depressing after the grand mixup of Dijon. I called at
the recruiting office. The officers in charge expressed surprise
that I should appear thirty-three days after mobilization had
been called. I explained and they got over their surprise.
They gave me my matriculation book and told me to go to
barracks, but instead I stopped at the hotel and rested. On the
public square, sometime during the evening, an account of the
latest news was thrown upon a screen: "The Prussians have
stopped their advance on Paris. They follow the edge of the
Argonne forest, and they are shelling Maubeuge." That is all.
People go home. I postpone to the next day the duty of be-
14 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
coming a chasseur a pied. I would have preferred to be a
mounted chasseur, but I would have had to send in an appli-
cation bother and after all, I was conscious that I could
walk better than ride.
SUNDAY. After a good night's sleep at the Hotel de Paris,
I felt as if I had been made over. After sending for my valises
I dressed as a gentleman and went to barracks. "Very simple
matter, you belong to the Twelfth company." I was placed
with the kids, of course, since I did not know anything about
military art. The Twelfth company was stationed in another
street ; the reserviste who accompanied me was greatly impressed
at the thought of my trip, although he had come from Paris
and had been brought up in Pontarlier. He gave me some good
advice and among other things, he suggested I put in an appear-
ance at barracks only at 4 and then I might ask to have the
money of my trip from San Francisco to New York refunded.
When I reached the office, Sunday at 4 P. M. the captain roared
at me had been expecting me to report for hours he was
suspicious that I had taken more time than was necessary to
come from San Francisco. The petty officers who were pres-
ent told me not to mind the old boy. I was put in first section,
fourth squad of Twelfth company. We were fifty in a school-
room large enough to hold thirty. Straw very thin in a strip
all about the room, extending six feet from the wall; fortun-
ately the windows were open. The food was served in big cans
which were placed in the middle of the yard, which contained
a fountain of undrinkable water, trickling over suspicious-
looking algae.
SUNDAY TO THURSDAY, September 10th. Fabulous amount
of time spent in getting equipment. The captain had told the
store to give me new trousers, new vest, old cape, later new
tunique. Other things, overalls, towels, flannel belt, shirt in
impossible condition as to solidity and dirt.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 15
Drills so far stupid when not silly We walk out three
miles to a field and learn East and West, keep step, swing by
fours. At times Swedish gymnastics, foolish games such as
leap-frog, snap of the whip. I get out of them all I can. Petty
officers are reserves and mean very well, but are tiresome with
their constant nagging. So far all the work was petty beyond
imagining. What was interesting was to hear the men talk who
returned from the front. I spoke with a man who had been
shot right through the neck, had walked some ten hours in
that condition, had at last found an ambulance and been saved.
The two scars were very small one below the left angle of
the jaw and the other on the opposite side, a little above the
Adam's apple. This man's company had found itself in a po-
sition where it was fired on by German and French artillery.
They failed to make the French see their error. These men
who have come from the front are very still they look list-
less; they are thin, but as a rule not pale. They are deter-
mined, but not enthusiastic; they seem all to have become fatal-
ists. The horrible part to me is that so many of those who
have been wounded are sent to the front as soon as they get
well again.
One man is here who was captured near Mulhausen, then
rescued. He testified to having been well treated by the
Germans.
A 1902 soldier arrived here yesterday, dressed as a civilian;
that is, he wore pajamas. After a few days campaigning, he had
fallen ill. He was sick in bed when the Germans entered the
village where he had been left. Some German soldiers, dis-
covering him, put the muzzles of their guns against his breast,
saying: "blesse-achever," but he shouted in a shrill voice,
"Not wounded, but ill." They let him alone. A few minutes
later he jumped out of the window, remained for twelve hours
in the garden, hidden among the raspberry bushes and by night
16 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
he skipped off, walking across country. He was two weeks
on the road.
All testify to the fact that the Germans cannot stand bayonet
charges. They throw their guns and run. They are heavy
and easy to kill. In every case they seem to have been three
or four times more numerous than the French.
Here is a typical conversation which I heard not long ago.
It shows the spirit of fairness which just now prevails among
our soldiers. One said, "We should not take any prisoners."
His comrades answered, "But they take prisoners and they
treat them well ; our turcos have murdered some prisoners.
The Germans are like ourselves; some are good and some are
bad." Generally discussions of this kind end by these words:
"They are men, just as we are."
The Mulhausen campaign was a mistake too great haste
rush without waiting for artillery, caused awful slaughter.
One Bonneau, held responsible, was dismissed from service.
He seemed to have deliberately reckoned at the utter destruction
of certain troops, particularly Forty-fifth chasseurs and some
alpines. Meeting men of the former on the road, he exclaimed :
"How does it happen that you fellows are alive? Couldn't
you fight to the last man?" or words to that effect. The re-
tort from the trooper was: "Why didn't you go yourself?"
The general complaint is that the Seventh corps has been
used too much that reserves have been sent to the front when
vast portions of the regular army had not yet seen fire.
A corporal, who has just returned from the front, tells me
that out of 1600 men from the Fifth battalion, possibly six
hundred are now at the front. The others are mostly wounded.
"O, the daring of the officers! The commandant was walking
back and forth, under fire, without trying in the least to pro-
tect himself. Too much daring, says the corporal, the officers
rush to their own destruction, they are swept away. Two
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 17
captains only are left from the officers of the Fifth battalion.
The death rate is also very high among lieutenants, for the very
same reason too much daring." The corporal is inclined to
criticize the officers on account of their temerity. He is a tall,
strong man, quiet of manner. The death rate, which is also
very high among the Boches, is mostly due, he tells me, to the
work of the "seventy-five." To-day, Thursday, I saw the
distribution of identification medals tin with black cord.
Last night the order came for the last reserves of the bat-
talion to leave for the front. In a very short time they were
ready in every detail and with a three days' supply of food.
The sack is frightfully heavy, though it is small and compact.
They carry one hundred and twenty shells apiece. The whole
outfit must weigh in the neighborhood of fifty pounds. During
the night or early evening, some of the men sang and gave
trumpet calls. While they were reviewed for the last time
they joked with the lower officers. No excess of glee, however ;
as usual, they took their departure as a matter of course, but
a serious matter, neither joy nor anything like distress. The
normal feeling seemed to be earnest but moderate in some
cases, perfect indifference. Few, specially married men, were
made pretty thoughtful, but that was all. The last thing they
did was to write home. There was, therefore, nothing drama-
tic or even startling in these departures for the front only
intense activity: the coming in of cases of cartridges, distribu-
tion of tinned meat, loaves of bread, little sewed up bags filled
with coffee, sugar, peas, respectively.
SUNDAY, 14th. Newspapers have been received containing
the announcement of the victory of the Marne and of the
beginning of a general retreat on the part of the Germans. No
details, nothing besides Joffre's proclamation. The kids in bar-
racks are more deeply interested in the dressing of their leath-
ers and in the furbishing of their guns than in the news from
18
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
the front. Absolute quiet reigns in town. No electric thrill.
Everybody talks about commonplace or even silly things. The
men from Mulhausen alone seem to see beyond the present
instant. The attitude of the French I see around me might
easily lead one to believe that a nation is like those animals
whose make up is so rudimentary that the health or the dis-
ease of one part of the body does not produce a corresponding
state in the rest of their organism.
Several hundred thousand men have just been killed or are
exposed to imminent death. Yet the thousands who remain are
calm and follow their daily routine. I understand why a great
patriotic drama is hardly ever immortalized through an artistic
interpretation at the time it took place. Did the poets of the
fifteenth century have any inkling of what Joan of Arc was
to mean to posterity? Perspective is lacking. It is only later,
much later, that people come to realize that the fate of a
nation had depended upon a certain event.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 19
Hotel Terminus September 3, 1914.
Du Chemin de Per de Lyon
ig, Boulevard Diderot
Paris
France is having a trying time, but it will be Germany's
turn soon, though that is no consolation.
You would not know your Paris today. Two-thirds of stores
closed "pour cause de mobilisation," few taxis, fewer horses,
many army wagons and ambulances.
I leave for Besangon in a little while on a military train
so I daresay I shall hear and see many interesting things and
will not sleep much.
I wrote to you from New York. I don't have to tell you now
that I could not very well hibernate in Stanford under the
present circumstances. I have no regiment yet, but I have an
army corps, the Seventh, and if I can keep my glasses straight
I can do a terrible lot of damage to the Germans. I may
also be put in infirmary work or in some clerical position.
Indecision and uncertainty have their charm.
You and your people must have had a very hard time.* My
sympathy and regard to your mother and your sisters.
The government left Paris to-day, but all is very quiet, ex-
.cept that the railroad stations are crowded.
Nearly every man, woman or child you meet has someone in
the army, and so many say: my brother was killed, my nephew
was killed at such a time and place, that one grows almost in-
*Finding passage on a steamer horaebound.
20 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
different, but you can't help admire the courage of all the poor
people. As for the soldiers, we met trains on our way from
Havre yesterday ; they had chalked on the cars, "Train de plaisir
pour Berlin," and men were shouting "On va couper les oreilles
a Guillaume!"
Goodbye. I hope your troubles will be over soon.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 21
Hotel Terminus, Paris.
To Dr. J- -:
I was very sorry to make trouble for you by leaving so
suddenly, but I feel sure that you will feel as I did, that my
staying in California this year would mean such moral misery
that immediate travelling was imperative.
I have just reached Paris. I go on to Besangon to-night.
Everything is quiet here, although the Government has gone
to Bordeaux and many are leaving for the Provinces.
Please give my best regards to all,
22 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
Written at the Cafe du Commerce \
Besangon, September 13th, 1914.
To A :
What do you think of my rash act?* I dare say you must
have reached New York by this time and I feel rather un-
comfortable at the thought that you may entertain an unfavor-
able opinion of me.
For the last week I have been sleeping on straw; I eat out
of a tin dish and I am in perfect health. The drill is tire-
some, but I had no illusions on this subject. I belong to a
squad of men who are being trained for corporals. Should
I belong to this squad for a few years I might become one
myself. However, I would very much prefer to become again
an Assistant Professor of Romance Languages. I hope that
everything may be ended by December, and that I may spend
Christmas with you all.
There are about fifty thousand men in Besangon, both in-
fantry and cavalry, and I do believe that at the present time
they are all gathered in this cafe, a fact which does not tend
to make letter writing easy.
We are now thoroughly equipped. To-morrow we take to
the field, creeping on our stomachs mostly, from one bush to
another, in pursuit of imaginary Prussians, thank heaven ! We
*Enlisting. A sailed from Marseilles on the day he landed
in Havre.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 23
will also practice shooting. If my eye-glasses will consent to
remain on my nose, I shall cover myself with glory. It looks
as if the Germans were being beaten quite thoroughly, but it
costs us a high price. So many people are mourning the loss
of their friends. All this is very sad, but it tends to show the
vitality of our race, which in my opinion is far from deserving
the reputation of decadence which so often has been imputed
to it.
I really do not know what I am writing, but please do your
best to understand. I am sleepy and it is so noisy here.
24 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Besangon, September 22d, 1914.
To B :
Hurrah! we are again in a state of communication. The
letters you sent me at Stanford were forwarded and came two
days ago. Your last letter, written when you received mine
from New York was delivered yesterday. So I feel fine. That
was a deuce of a stretch without any news from you. I feared
for a while that it might continue ad infinitum. I had an idea
that you must have gone back to the United States.
Life just now is more puerile than tragic. There is nothing
stirring in military training. It's mainly monotonous drudg-
ery. We get up at 5, drink a tin cupful of black coffee, eat a
piece of bread and beat it off to a march or a drill or the shoot-
ing ranges and return at 10 or half -past. It's then we get
our mail. At 1 P. M., we start drilling again and it goes
on until 5 with ten minutes rest each hour. At 5.30 we eat
from our tin cans and from 6 to 8 we can go where we please.
It's the time for correspondence. We don't feel like sitting
up and we are always hungry. It's the most complete in-
tellectual rest I have ever engaged in. The school in which
we are quartered has to be vacated by the beginning of Octo-
ber, so we are going to be transferred to Pontarlier. We will
be quartered in a factory out there, and we may get beds,
though that is not certain, since the number of wounded is
so great that beds are at a premium. It's a small matter, for
after a few nights one sleeps on straw with absolute soundness.
You know where Pontarlier is. It is a few miles from La
Ferriere, where I was born. I shall feel quite at home. It
is up in the mountains I love best.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 25
If the Germans are not cleaned out by the middle of October
we shall be sent to the front, according to all probability. I
am not worried in any way. I don't care to look for trouble,
but if trouble comes my way it will not disturb me.
The news of the destruction of the Cathedral of Rheims
came to-day. The Germans must be crazy. Their actions
are incredible. It's all up with their prestige as a civilized
nation and whatever may be their efforts they will get whipped
in the end.
I can't get excited about the battles. They seem incredible.
This town is absolutely quiet. It's full of soldiers, but other-
wise business goes on as if there were no war.
On the whole I am sorry for the German people. They are
as good people as any, but their government is damnable. I
believe firmly in the distinction made in Le Temps, I think,
by Remain Rolland who speaks of the Germany of Wilhelm II
and that of Goethe, and of the necessity for intelligent people
to keep the two apart in their minds.
I had a good letter from my brother. He is glad I came.
He is with the genie at Valence and will not have to go to the
front.
One thing may keep me in barrack life to the end of things.
Our battalion had a terrible time of it six weeks ago, and out
of forty officers only three are in the service now. All the
others are dead or else in hospitals. It may be that we will not
be sent out for that reason, since the part of the country from
which the battalion came has paid in full to the nation already.
We leave at 5.15 to-morrow morning to go off shooting, and
I am fairly falling asleep now, so I will say good-night and
write again soon.
26 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Cafe du Commerce
Besangon, September 26th, 1914.
ToB :
My corporal is now very friendly and my sergeant is getting
tamer. Soon I think he will feed from the hand and want to
be patted. The former is a locksmith, the latter a miller, and
each I think looked askance at having a professor in their sec-
tion. They are finding out that I know as much about my
left and right hands as anybody and they are less rampageous
in proportion.
I broke my glasses but several new pairs are coming from
Paris. It has handicapped me in shooting as I had to go to
the range with my reading glasses and guess where the bull's
eye might be. I did get six counts out of four bullets the other
day, however; that meant two bull's eyes and at 250 meters.
So I felt set up since I had no former practice with war guns.
Now I am getting conceited.
The main amusement here for me, beside writing letters, is
to make devastating raids on pastry-shops and cleaning them
out of every kind of petit gateau.
This town is more quiet than London. Life goes on nor-
mally. People are hardened now. There is hardly a family
which is not anxious about someone at the front; but the era
of excitement is over. No one expects quick success, but all
are confident of ultimate success. I think we may move out
of here in three weeks or so. They may use us as "troupes',
d J occupation" before they send us to the front. Whatever
comes along I shall take cheerfully and calmly. I have a
good dose of fatalism in me which may after all be a form
of faith. At any rate all the people I care for
are back of me and, I repeat, it is a fine feeling.
Good night, good luck, and many, many thanks.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 27
Besangon, October 2d, 1914.
To A :
I am sending to you a photograph of me which was taken
at the time of John's visit. You see I look very gentle for
a warrior. Well one cannot at call look ferocious.
Nothing new here. We are waiting to be sent at the right
moment to the right place. The only thing we know about
the war is that the deadlock continues and that the Germans
have just received as reinforcement five hundred thousand men.
France may summon as many, whenever she may see fit to call
them. Therefore, everything is all right.
Good news from Stanford. Several of my friends wrote me
to express their good wishes and even their congratulations.
I fancy the life of Frenchmen in the United States will be very
different after the war. We will no longer be crushed by the
fancied superiority of Northern races. We will have shown
what we are in more than one way. Then, the Germans will
have their turn "to eat humble pie." I even fear that many
people deserving a better fate may have to suffer unjustly in
consequence of the mean deeds of their government. I think it
is a sad thing and it will be highly desira'ble for people to try
to discriminate between the good and the bad Germans. In
this respect I agree with Romain Rolland, although it is very
difficult to stand by this opinion after the scandalous manifesto
of the Prussian intellectuals a manifesto which seems too clear-
ly officially inspired to represent the opinion of superior men.
Therefore, do not harbor too much of a grudge against your
German colleagues and other honest people who are really to
be pitied and will be still more to be pitied in the near future.
28 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
To-night I am going to dine in town, in a cabaret I know.
On Sunday it depresses me to have to eat out of a tin dish.
We are not supposed to eat in town but once in a while. One
is tempted to run a few risks. Good bye, my dear. If I write
in pencil it is because there is no possibility of writing otherwise
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 29
Cafe du Commerce,
Besangon, October 8th, 1914.
My three days' silence was due to the fact that my brother
came to see me. We had a fine time together. I obtained first
an 11 A. M. to 8 P. M. permission, then one from 6 to 10
P. M. The captain is a gentleman, and this morning, as my
brother was on the esplanade, he told me in terrible tones, as
befits a warrior, "Pick up your gun and walk with your
brother!" And so I did, getting thus one more permission.
My brother went off this morning, so my holiday is over. It
was good to see him. The possibility of my going to the front
hurts him much more than it does me.
I don't believe I'll be sent for some ten days yet, anyway.
Drilling with regular soldiers is very much more interesting
than the same work with recruits. We are commanded by a
very good lieutenant who has recently returned from the
front and who is a cracker-jack; he makes us hop along over
ploughed fields, into ditches and through bushes in a way fit
to bewilder the Dutch. To-day I must have destroyed thirty
cents' worth of cabbages in the course of operations.
The fact that I am at last with older men, my brother's
call and the getting rid of a beastly cold all tend to make me
feel fine. Also we have been given a new lot of straw to-day.
I went to the cart myself and pinched a bunch without asking
anyone's advice so that I have a whole lot for to-night's nap.
To-morrow I shall be more ready than ever to destroy vege-
table gardens.
30 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
We have no definite news about the war. Fighting goes
on in the Aisne Valley, that's all we know. We are through
being mad at the Germans. We are simply getting ready to
shove them out of our country.
My brother insisted on having my picture taken. I'll send
you one when they are ready. That won't be for a fortnight
or three weeks.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 31
Besangon, October 12th, 1914.
Here I am still, doing nothing and I have just received
your letter in answer to the one in which I told you I was
about to leave for the front. My not having gone does not
mean much, as I am pretty sure to go before the month is
over and perhaps before.
All the recruits with whom I was at first have been sent
away to a small village and I remained with the regular re-
serves, nearly all of whom have already fought. We have also
changed quarters and we are much more comfortable now.
It's a fine schoolhouse, our room is flooded with sunshine every
morning and we are not so many in one room. Also we are
not worked very hard. I am writing you in the morning now,
in the room. We drill or march only in the afternoon. The
atmosphere is entirely different from what it was with the
recruits. There is a feeling of comradeship among the men
and the petty officers, which gives a fraternity atmosphere
which is really pleasant.
Two weeks from to-day, the boys nineteen years old will
be called in. That shows how much men are needed, and I
am more satisfied every day that I did the right thing in com-
ing over. I would have had a lifelong remorse if I had not.
As I am writing, the sergeant is going over the equipment
of each man. I need a knapsack and a canteen and I don't
care for government shirts. I am going to follow your ad-
vice and clothe myself in wool from chin to toe before I
leave. Luckily I bought for the Sierra trip with my brother-
in-law some fine outing shirts of very warm and heavy stuff,
32 Letters fro?n a Chasseur a Pied
and they are coming in just right now. I say, "Hurrah for
American shoes and outing shirts." Also, "Hurrah for Dr.
Rasurel who sells fine excellent woolen clothes.
I am not learning much that is new these days. It's the
same old thing. We run and lie down, get up and run, all
the while keeping in mind some propitious looking bush or
rock or wall or tree or hollow in the land about us.
Yesterday they made us shoot at silhouettes of men crouch-
ing. Pretty hard to get, especially as we had the sun in our eyes,
and because they made us shoot with old type rifles, like your
old Springfield rifle. I feel that a German lying down is
pretty safe from my shots at 300 yards and conversely a Ger-
man would have his trouble seeing me in similar position.
The weather is nice and crisp now. Just right for marches
with a load. I fear the heat more than the cold.
From diary Now we are quartered in a different school-
house, on the fourth floor; it is cleaner, better lighted by day
and by night. The food is better.
Everything would be satisfactory were it not that yesterday
while taking a leap, the last one in the drill, I hurt my knee,
bruising it badly; now it is swollen. The medical examiner
having sent me to the infirmary. I witnessed the cleaning of
a wound. I had to leave the ward and on reaching the cor-
ridor I fainted, falling on the floor full length. The worst of
it is that this accident has taken away my self-confidence my
knee, the rain, the straw, the remembrance of my mishap,
all these things depress me more than I can tell. What shall
I do in the trenches?
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 33
October 18th, 1914.
Just two words as it is getting late. This has been an
uneventful day during which I watched my knee grow strong.
The "major" gave me four days off duty this morning so as
to recuperate completely. I feel that I shall be on firm foun-
dations before that time elapses.
Sundays are foolish days in my new business. We just
hang around all day until 5 P. M., when we light out. They
might just as well give us the day, but they don't. Red tape
I guess. No talk of leaving as yet. I am a humbug.
Had a fine dinner in a little dark, low-studded restaurant.
It's amazing what good things, and in what quantity one can
get in this town for two francs. I don't see how they do it.
A meal like that would cost over a dollar in the United
States.
Had a letter from my sister. All serene in the Connecticut
Valley. Also news from Stanford.
Do you like mice and rats? Some had a race across my
prostrate body last night, then dashed across the next chasseur,
and so on around the room. Lucky the chasseurs are not
ladies, or else the company would have been routed.
My days off do not mean that I am free to go about as I
please. It simply means that I don't have to drill or march.
I must hang around the barracks all day just the same. A sad
fate, but it might be lots worse.
It is twenty minutes of eight, so I must speed, or hobble,
away as you may please to call it.
34 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
October 20th, 1914.
To B :
I am writing this in a room where all the lame and shaky
have been gathered. There is no furniture, so we all sit on
the straw and do what we can. Fortunately I have a small
box to write on. The other men are on their backs reading
or squatting around a blanket playing cards.
No news in the newspapers. Reporters must have a great
time trying to set in a new form the same old dispatches which
don't mean anything anyway. Those confounded Germans
are still in France, that's all that can be gathered, and Heaven
only knows how long it will be before they are pushed out
of Belgium. We are in for it for a long time I think, un-
less something bursts inside Germany.
About one thousand men of line infantry left yesterday
and a good deal of artillery went this morning. It seems to
me that some men are being sent to the front when they have
not fully recovered from wounds received at the beginning
of the trouble. It's a pretty cruel business, whatever aspect of it
one sees. It's amazing from what bullet wounds men recover,
however, only two little bits of scars remaining to testify
that the victim was shot right through the chest, the arm,
the thigh, or even the foot, bones and all. We have dozens
like that here. They don't seem to have suffered much either,
at any time.
I have a task ahead. A chap wants me to compose a letter,
meant for a man who is fooling with his girl! He is not
certain that his literary training can cope with the emergency.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 35
Besangon, October 21st, 1914.
To B :
Another day gone by in laziness, though not unpleasantly.
There was a "revue d'armes" at 10 A. M., so I spent most
of the morning taking my rifle to pieces and polishing the
hilt of my bayonet. In the afternoon, we took a stroll up a
hill, which commands a view of the whole town. Besangon
is very picturesquely situated. To-morrow I am going to
drill in the morning. If my knee objects I shall cut the after-
noon performance and complain to the surgeon the next day.
No talk of leaving for the front. Might just as well be in-
Stanford as far as warlike atmosphere is concerned, if it were
not for the men who turn up from various hospitals in groups
of two or three, nearly every day, and tell their experiences
with or against "les Bodies," that is, the Dutch. How Alle-
mand ever gave Boche is hard to see. They do say les "Alle-
boches," though at times.
Well, to-morrow I'll tell you whether or not I am again
a walker. These last seven days I have felt like an inmate
of an old ladies' home, which is no way for a warrior to feel.
I feel as much like a warrior as I do like a millionaire, but
time ripens one. I see how I might face some trouble, but
I can't see for the life of me how I ever could damage anyone.
It's lucky for the Republic they don't all feel as I do.
The government seems to be out of regulation army knap-
sacks, so they are giving us tyrolian ruck-sacks, the kind tour-
ists carry in the Alps pear-shaped canvas bags much better
and lighter than our regular square leather sacks, it seems
to me. I am much rejoiced at that fact.
Hope to hear from you to-morrow and to hear good news.
36 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Besangon, October 23d, 1914.
To B: :
I just ran at full speed to the photographer's as time is short
to-night, and the old fool could not lay his silly hands on the
pictures. I looked like Black Cloud himself. It caused re-
newed bustle through the shop, but did not bring out my
photos. I left showered with promises that everything would
be right to-morrow. So there we are. Photographers in this
town believe in the "manana" idea.
Except for this mishap, this has been a pretty good day.
We did fool drill stunts this morning, but this afternoon we
took a fifteen-mile walk at a pretty fast rate and, as my knee
stood it perfectly, I feel like a man to-night. I had a horri-
ble panic for a while, fearing that I might be left in some
infirmary while the others went away. Now there is no
danger of that, though we don't know when we are going.
It was a superb trip we took this afternoon. We walked
around one of the mountains which overlook Besangon. The
country is beautiful just now with autumn foliage. The colors
are not so vivid as they are in America (See America first!)
but they are very delicate, especially the reds, and the fields
are greener than they would be in New England.
It's fun to walk with a lot of Frenchmen and boys. I don't
believe a yard is gone over without giving rise to some joke.
They josh from start to finish. No man, woman, child, tree
or bush or cow met on the way can escape from a jibe of some
sort. They don't do it in a disagreeable spirit. It's simply
to kill time and shorten miles.
You must know as well as I do that the Germans are holding
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 37
like grim death up North and that your race and my race are
hammering at them and that the result is pretty nearly a dead-
lock. I think we are in for it for a year at least, unless some-
thing bursts up inside Germany, which favor may God grant us.
I am pretty sleepy and muddled, so I think I shall say good
night now inasmuch as in addition, I must drop my brother a
line, having at this minute received a note from him and money
sent me by a Bridgewater friend as a war contribution !
38 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
October 28th, 1914.
Another dismal and utterly useless day ahead. It's raining
and we have nothing to do. The only thing to take up one's
mind is the persistent rumor that two hundred men will go
Monday next somewhere along the frontier of Alsace. Those
who belong to the active army and those who have not gone
to the front as yet, will be picked first. If this rumor is true,
there is something to look forward to, but rumors come and
go so often and are so contradictory that I give up believing
in anything at all. You can't complain that I don't keep
you informed since I tell you even the rumors. Yesterday
we played again that we were taking trenches. They always
make us end by a bayonet charge for about fifty or a hundred
yards. We run all we can and yell like savages, but if they
order the charge too soon we get winded before we get to
the trench.
No news from anybody these days. The best time of the
day is still from 5 to 8. We sneak off at 5 now, though the
rule is 6. The place where I ate last night was full of ter-
ritorials who are going to leave to-day. Some of them were
pretty old and decrepit. It's a heartrending sight to my mind to
see them in uniform. So many men by the time they are
forty have seen their best days and are really beginning to be old
men. Such troops, of course, are meant for occupation rather
than for fighting and that is fortunate. No real war news.
The same apparent stagnation coexistent with hard fighting
This is an unenthusiastic letter to write you but "que
faire?" This is real London weather. We can sympathize
with each other. That of itself is a pretty good privilege
Goodbye good cheer and good luck.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 39
Translated.
Besangon, October 29th, 1914.
To A :
This day has been filled with noise and turmoil, a day of
feverish activity, standing in pleasing contrast with the preceding
ones. To-morrow we start for the Vosges. Two hundred and
fifteen of us are going to reinforce the Fifth battalion which is,
of course, nobody knows where.
Don't worry. It is a departure; there is no denying the fact,
but I have been expecting this day for a long while, and it is in
view of this event that I have left America.
In connection with this trip, one thing pleases me. We arc
going to manoeuvre in the Vosges and later, God willing, in a
country dear to two friends of my childhood, namely Erckmann
and Chatrian. While looking at the map, these old names of
Phalsbourg, Sarrebruck, le Donon brought back to my mind's
eye several old books: Le Blocus, Le Consent, etc., etc.
Hence you see I am starting on a literary, military trip. Now,
don't believe that I am starting in a mood of selfish light-
heartedness. Far from it. Only there is a certain task to be
accomplished, and this task cannot be accomplished if one gives
way to emotions. That is why I say au revoir and be sure
that my thoughts will constantly be with you. It is very
possible that I may not always be able to write to you.
Therefore, in case of prolonged silence, do not worry.
I say once more, au revoir.
40 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
October 30th, 1914.
This time I think we are leaving. They are giving us all
our things and we are to take the train sometime to-morrow
afternoon or night. I don't know how soon we will be ac-
tually at the front. There may be several days of quiet yet.
At any rate, feel sure that I am doing what I want to do,*
what I would be very unhappy not to do. If I had remained
at Stanford, my life would have been utterly wretched.
Our correspondence will very likely be very irregular from
now on.
Don't worry in any case. You would have good reason for
worrying if I were not able to do what I want or if I had
failed to try.
Bright hopes and best wishes.
P. S. We are going somewhere in Alsace, but we don't
know where exactly. I shall probably not be able to tell
you, when I do know, or write more than postals. Mail,
some of it at any rate, will be forwarded from here to wher-
ever we will be.
It is better for one to go to Alsace rather than to Belgium
at the present time, since the country is in much better con-
dition. It is a fine country, too forests and mountains.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 41
November 1st, 1914.
To B :
After riding all afternoon and all night we landed in a
lovely valley of the Vosges. We have mountains all about
and splendid forests. To-day the weather is perfect. In
addition there are five fountains and lots of straw in this
hamlet, two things making for happiness that were singu-
larly lacking in Besangon.
The Dutch are a few miles from here hiding in trenches.
We have dug some just in front of them and all a company
has to do is to watch them over a day and a night twice a
week. It's the most harmless form of war, purely observa-
tion, so don't spoil my fun by worrying. I am having a good
time.
Will write more at length next time in a few days, as
just now the wind is blowing in the back of my neck and I
fear a courant d'air as much as any French private, which
is saying a great deal.
Early this morning we went through villages and towns
wrecked by the Germans also saw numberless farms of which
there remained but the walls.
42 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
November 17th, 1914.
To B- -:
As for my life it has been somewhat strenuous. We went
up the mountain to occupy the trenches four days and we re-
mained eleven days instead and it was pretty hard work. We
had three sets of earthworks about two hundred to three hun-
dred yards from the German fortifications and they had to
be occupied night and day, of course. We were two com-
panies and took turns every twenty-four hours. We would
spend one night and one day in watchful waiting then fall
back to some log-houses and spend one night there when we
were lucky. When we were not lucky they would trot us
to some outpost and we would spend another night on guard.
There were times when we hardly slept for forty-eight hours.
The last three days it rained and we were soaked and in mud
for that period.
There was not much fighting, just scattered shots from one
breastwork to the other. They killed two of our men and
wounded two. We paid them back or better. I have now
received the "baptism of fire" and feel quite like a man. I
know the noise of bullets and shells. I can tell from the re-
port whether the gun is French or German. The tough part
of the business was that we could not remove our belts and
cartridge boxes at any time next to the enemy, and try-
ing to sleep with all those straps on and the weight of the
cartridges is anything but a joke. So when we returned to
the village yesterday and could sleep without equipment, on
real straw it felt quite like heaven.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 43
We probably won't go up there again for three weeks, so
we have peaceful times ahead.
We have an ass of a lieutenant who just came and he wants
to "review" the inside of our sacks, so I must run off.
So far I have found war pretty good sport. To be sure I
have not been near any place where there is artillery at work
so I don't know much. Guns boom all the time to the North
and South of us, but not where we are for it's too hilly for
artillery right here.
44 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Translated from the French
November 23d, 1914.
To A :
I am sorry I have to write to you on such grayish paper,
but ce st la guerre, and I am in the backwoods of the Vosges.
We are kept as a reserve at about one mile from the trenches.
They are not doing anything up there and consequently we arc
leading a peaceful life here. This little out of the way place
reminds me of Domodossola, with its woodlands on all sides
and its steep hills rising directly from the road, which is the
main highway from Strasburg to Saint-Die. We shall certainly
not go to Strasburg and they will not return to Saint-Die. In
my opinion, we have reached the final deadlock here. Possibly
on the Belgian front things are different, but here nothing will
take place.
We have been on a little expedition which lasted three
days; we were to have a few days' rest after eleven days
passed in the mud of the trenches, but the day after our return
we were sent off to give support to a regiment of infantry
which was to attack. We were five hundred and we crossed
the mountain, Indian file, following the forest trail. When
we reached the other valley, that is about ten in the morn-
ing, we prepared some coffee by the roadside; then, in little
groups, we scattered over the fir grove for our artillery-men
had begun bombarding the Germans, from where, I cannot
tell, but the shells, whirring over our heads, were falling on
the enemy with a tremendous crash. About two hours later
rifle shooting began. Balls were whizzing through the
branches. Of course, nobody was in sight and we were in
perfect security hidden among our little fir trees. About two
o'clock everything calmed down and we went down hill to
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 45
strike the road which would lead us to the other slope where
our friends the pitous had their camp. Our two mitrailleuses
packed on the back of horses followed us by trails which baffle
all description and at four we reached the road on the hill-
top. On the other side the fusillade still kept on; and from
time to time, a wounded soldier on a stretcher passed us and
we kept waiting, waiting. About five, they told us it was
all over, we would not be needed because the Germans could
not be dislodged without our losing a great many men and
that the position was not worth such a loss, but, they said,
we might be of help the next day, so we sped down hill and
we spent an awful night in a saw-mill open from all sides
to the winds and what winds. However I have not yet
seen anything which could in any way compare to what I
saw in Rutland.
On the next day by four-thirty we climbed up hill at full
speed ; this time we took our position above the road ; we
remained there the whole blessed day waiting, with cold feet.
It was snowing a little and we had been allowed to kindle
fires. Walking a short distance to the right we could see
at our feet the small town of Senones, a part of which is in
the hands of the Germans, while the other is defended by
our marines. We could see the Germans walking along the
streets. The mitrailleuses were firing, but from too long a
range to do them any harm. We dared not bombard them
because they make our peasants stand in front of them when-
ever the cannon is used. The whole day was spent idling.
Towards night they told us to go and come again on the
following day. This seemed rather trying and as we were
getting ready to start, I kept thinking with some bitterness
of the open saw-mill. Fortunately the captain was not any
more eager than I was to spend another night in the saw-
mill, and at full speed, through the dark he led us to Saint-
46 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Priel, ten kilometers from the crest of the hill. There we
found good straw, good roof, good cheese, good wine and
even good cream, with plenty of sugar in it and made even
more delicious by being flavored with a few drops of brandy.
But we had to tear ourselves away at three thirty in the morn-
ing to go back to our crest. Another day was spent at the
disposal of the infantry colonel. Again we froze, without
fire this time, until twelve. Then we went back to our quar-
ters in wonderful weather. This is all we did during these
three days campaigning. You see this is not the great war,
and I believe the great war is really over. It was all right
during the first months at least on this side, now it is a dead-
lock. In these mountains there is no chance, either for us or
for them, to accomplish any brilliant success. We are equally
matched. It may be different in the North. This last at-
tack which was utterly insignificant, has nevertheless cost the
lives of twenty fathers of families; besides fifty men wounded.
We have advanced fifty meters and broken some wire netting.
"The game is not worth the candle." I give you all these
details to show you that the war is not very dangerous. The
careless men are those who run risks. As far as our fare is
concerned we are wonderfully well supplied ; never in all my
life have I eaten such good things and in such plenty. I am
growing fat, it is a fact, and I sleep ten hours at a sltretch
whenever there is no duty. Aunt Laure sent me packages
of woollen things and Madame Blancard sent me a wonder-
ful woollen scarf. Dulac, John's friend, is sending me some
tobacco. I am living on the fat of the land. I fervently hope
that the Germans are not so comfortable as we are. I must
write letters of thanks for all these packages; that is why I
must leave you, my dear. May I ask you to send my letter
to Brooklyn, it is not every day that I can write such a
lengthy epistle.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 47
November 23d, 1914.
To B :
I am on friendly terms with the officers and I hold my
own with the petty officers, so all is well.
My brother has sent me five cent stamps, so I can mail
this directly. Stamps can't be bought out here at all. The
Germans occupied this valley for three weeks. Just before
they got kicked out, they burned all they could. At Raon,
three miles from where we are camping, they burnt the city
market among many other buildings, and as they were drunk,
they never noticed that they were incidentally burning to
death their own wounded soldiers together with our own.
We can't shell many of their positions, because they put our
farmers in front knowing that we won't fire on our own
people. . . . Goodbye, good wishes of all kinds to you
and your family.
48 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
November 25th, 1914.
To D. C.
Just returned from a week and a half stay behind earth-
works in front of the Dutch.
Had one close shave; my sergeant was killed a yard from
me as we were going out to pick up a fellow who was wounded.
The hard part of that business is that you can't sleep much
if any and you must lie down with all your traps and straps.
Don't expect to go again for two weeks. We live now
on the fat of the land.
Good luck, BOB.
Translated from the Diary.
We were in the 3d trench when Muller was killed. Salmon
was not completely concealed from view. Roussel attracted
Muller's attention to the fact. Muller told him to mind his
business. Two minutes later Salmon was hit. Muller and I
went to fetch him. To all appearance Salmon was dead, but
one of his hands still preserved a rosy hue. Muller lifted
him up, shook him, held to his lips my handglass, then began
to roll him toward our trench which was thirty yards off.
From behind a fir tree our sentinel called: "Look out!" A sec-
ond later Muller was hit and he fell across Salmon, his back
being turned towards me. There was a death rattle, the gurg-
ling of a hemorrhage, then he rolled over on one side and
remained lifeless. After ascertaining that he was dead I went
back to the trench. The ball, piercing his cranium, had come
out through his mouth.
That night we slept under the telephone shed and on the
next day we buried Salmon, but Muller's body was taken to
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 49
Raon-1'Etape. The little cemetery contains half a dozen
tombs, some of our men are buried there and some alpins.
With nice and even pious care, the tombs have been decorated,
green branches, white crosses, crosses made of moss, and all
around the yard there is a hedge of pine trees. The tombs of
the Germans are not far off, they are protected by a railing,
but there are no crosses. The Germans have made a wire
tangle over the body of one of our men, which they have left
unburied.
A few days later our captain avenged Muller. He killed a
German sentry and three out of four men who came to fetch
him.
50 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
December 4th, 1914.
Dear B :
Two American letters from you this week so I am again
in a normal state. You must have received several of mine by
this time as well as those slow moving pictures.
There has been nothing exciting of late and very little that
was tiring. We spent from the 27th to the 1st of December in
and about the trenches on our mountain top. We did not sleep
much during that time, but the weather was good and during
the whole time only three shots were fired by us. The infantry
three miles to the right of us were attacked at night. I hap-
pened to be on duty behind a big pine tree in front of the
trench at the time and had a chance to see and hear. For
about forty-five minutes there was a rifle fire the like of which
I had never heard, and on the crest opposite, the searchlight
of the Dutch kept plying from left to right over the woods.
It was very interesting. We thought that perhaps they might
come on us and we were full of business, but nothing hap-
pened and by the time I was through my watch, the night was
again perfectly still.
We did not suffer from either cold or rain this time as the
trench in which we were is luxuriously appointed. Big rooms,
with each a wide fireplace, have been cut into the hill and roofed
over, also little holes have been dug in the side of the trenches
and we can warm ourselves while watching. For that matter
watching is easy. For thirty yards in front of the trenches there
is a maze of barbed wire and of chicken wire which would
puzzle a rabbit. Imagine what chances one or more fat Ger-
mans would have to get to us without being filled full of shot.
They know it and stay still right where they are.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 51
We are going up there again December 12th; we will
come back here for Christmas and spend New Year's Day up
there, that is if things continue as they have the last month,
and there is every reason to believe they will. There are no
serious battles on the front anywhere now. I am writing in
the guard house. It is the quietest place around. My
"escouade" is here on duty for twenty-four hours. Three of
us at a time stand at the door and on the road to stop every-
body and see the "laissez passer." I was up two and a half
hours this morning and I have nothing to do until night. They
are playing French poker at the table where I am writing this.
Lot of "gros sous" floating about and much interest displayed.
I don't know how long this war is going to last, but I think
we are in for it until Spring anyway. It's the laziest life I
have ever led. I am great friends with the corporal who is
a kid and with most of the sergeants. The lieutenant shakes
hands with me each time he sees me and speaks English with me
so you see I am living on easy street. If this reaches you about
Christmas, A Merry Christmas to you.
52 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
December 7th, 1914.
Dear B :
We have just spent three foolish days watching over a vil-
lage that did not need watching. Hours and hours in the
dripping woods from which arose white mists when the sun
came out. No Germans for five or six miles at the nearest
and no possible way for them to come near us, yet we had
to watch as if the woods were full of them. This kind o^
boy scout work I do not like.
There must have been great fights to the East of us for the
last three nights. Just about six there was the greatest
amount of rifle and rapid-fire gun shooting I have ever heard.
As before, searchlights work back and forth and back and
forth in the sky. But these night attacks are mainly a bluff,
at least out here in the mountains. They are very noisy, but
neither side budges.
The monotony of those three days at Lajus was relieved
by the clever combinations arranged between my kid corporal
and myself and by means of which we managed to get once,
hot chocolate, another time hot cafe au lait and three times,
hot sugared wine. By such gastronomical trifles is life in the
field relieved.
This war is going to last a long, long time, I fear. They are
calling in more men, though there is not much fighting going
on now.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 53
December llth, 1914.
To Miss H :
When war broke out I came back to France to destroy the
German Empire. After two months' training I have just spent
five weeks or so at the front in the Vosges mountains. We had
a set of four trenches to keep clear of Germans and we had no
difficulty in accomplishing our task, as these gentlemen keep
themselves in their holes, firing only on sentinels and isolated
groups. They fired on me once, by gum! and missed me!
Rainy nights in the trenches can be pretty mean, but on the
whole I have not had a very hard time. Just now we are off
duty, but are likely to leave for Mulhausen and other contested
territories about any day.
54 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Translated from the French
December 16th, 1914.
To A :
This very morning I received your Thanksgiving letter. For
several days I have been without news because we returned
this morning from a wonderful expedition. We had been
released from our trenches in the Vosges and I from a little
village three miles from Saint-Die. Almost right away we
were sent to Alsace by way of the neck of Bussang. We spent
the night at Wesserling and the following morning we went
directly to Saint-Amarin ; there we took the mountain path on
the left. At noon we were told that we would have to swoop
down the opposite slope and take a village which lies at the
foot of it. It was Steinbach. And we did it without difficulty.
We came from two sides and we had our mitrailleuse in the
middle. We came through the vineyards and the Germans
fled. We were so few that they could easily have killed every-
one of us. The inhabitants received us with wisdom. A
woman called out to me: "We have been waiting for you
a long time." Others were not saying anything, but one coul<f
see from their looks that they were more German than French.
Mixed feelings.
While we were swooping down on the village, our captain
was killed. With this exception, there were few casualties.
About four o'clock the commandant came. He sent my com-
pany to the left. We dug trenches. During the night the
Germans received about six trainfulls of reinforcements and
we, nothing at all. As a natural result, the next day at day-
break they attacked us fiercely. My company took its stand on
a crest still farther on the left and there we killed, killed all
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 55
through the morning. We could see the Germans passing
through the forest as they attempted to turn us. We were
shooting at each other from a distance of fifty meters. About
noon we had to withdraw. I thought we should take again
the Saint-Amarin's p'ath. No, indeed. Our officers brought us
together down in the valley and then, by a big detour, we re-
turned to take new positions, on the left, and of course we were
attacked on the following day. We repulsed the attack but
our positions were becoming untenable and on the fourth day,
about 1 A. M., we quietly slipped away. Mountain trails,
depth of night, hardly any sleep in three days and almost no
food, this mountain trip was rather strenuous. At last we
reached Thann and it is from there I am writing to you. I
waved the consigne and I slept in a bed, in the house of an
Alsatian family, who received me as a son and would not al-
low me to pay one cent. Now we are going to have a few days'
rest. I shall try to write, so as to give you more particulars,
but it is difficult. Now, I want you to know that this life
suits me pretty well and I beg of you not to be concerned about
me. I enjoy meeting the Alsatians. They are so pleased to
see us.
I must leave you now ; love, much love to the family. I wish
I could write to every one, but I cannot.
P. S. There are a great many things I wish I could tell
you, but how could I do it?
56 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
To Miss H.
Military Hospital.
Your newsy letter was given me, one morning in the trench.
It was passed down from hand to hand to my place, and must
have been surprised to find that it was destined to reach one
of the men, all wrapped up in sheepskin and in a blanket and
pretty generally plastered with red mud. I need not tell you
that it was a genuine treat for me to hear from you and from
all those about whom you wrote. It certainly was a rare thing
to get Easthampton news, while in a nasty ditch in front of
Steinbach, Alsace; so let me thank you very heartily for your
kindness.
Well, to sum up operations, I was in Besancon (Caesar,
Book I) eight weeks getting some training; then I was shipped
with a detachment of about five hundred to a hamlet in the
Vosges. Said hamlet was eight miles from the trenches, which
were 250 yards from the Germans. The six companies of our
battalion would take turns two at a time, to occupy the trenches
for a week or so at a time. There was no fighting to speak
of, just sniping here and there, and very little of that. During
the eight weeks, which we spent there, we did not lose ten men.
The country is very rough and artillery could not come into
play, hence easy times all around, except in rainy weather, or
when the frost began to bite our toes. The mountains were
beautiful, very heavily forested with evergreens, so heavily that
while we could hear the Dutch talk and dig, we could seldom
see them. This pleasant state of affairs changed, December
10th, when we were all shipped at night, "for an unknown des-
tination." In the morning we woke up a good many miles
away on the Alsatian frontier, and by night we were in Wesser-
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 57
ling, in the valley of the St.-Amarin, or of the Thann river,
By morning we were off again, marching down the valley.
At noon we were on top of a mountain range north of the
town of Weiler. There our captain told us calmly that we
had come to take the town of Steinbach, which was some-,
where on the edge of the Rhine valley; so we marched down
forest trails, and we were pretty full of thought. Cannon
were booming down below us. Military balloons could be seen,
swinging over the plain, and a "Taube," kept circling over us,
making us take to the brush, every little while. At about
3 P. M., we suddenly came out of the woods into some
vineyard and there was the village about six hundred yards
away in the hollow. By that time we had been spotted, and
shooting began. We scattered in along curved lines on the
crest, leaving about six feet of space from one man to the
next. We shot awhile. Then all got up, ran forward a few
feet to lie still and shoot again. We had gone a hundred
yards that way, to our amazement, we heard our bugles sound-
ing the charge. We still were the deuce of a way from the
village, but there was nothing to do, but to get up and beat
ir down the vineyards, so we did, yelling like savages. At the
foot of the slope there was a brook and we made for it. Men
were falling here and there, some crawled away. Others were
quite still. Our captain was killed just about then. His or-
derly told me that he was hit in the stomach, fell all in a heap,
then sat up, braced himself, laughed and then fainted. He
died a few moments later. By the time we had reached the
brook and stretched in it and fired for a while on suspicious
looking windows and roofs, the Germans had cleared out or
hid in cellars. The fact is they had no idea that we would
come over the mountain, and they were taken clear off their
guard. We felt pretty fine, walking about the village, looking
for prisoners, but before very long, the joke was on us. We
58 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
were five companies and that was all, no way of getting re-
inforcements over the blamed mountain. It started to rain,
and we were told to dig trenches about the village. We dug.
but all night we heard trains, rumbling in the valley, coming
from Mulhausen and Senheim. Their searchlights kept sweep-
ing over us, and we lay flat in the mud each time. By morning
we had sixteen companies of Germans on our hands and a lot
of artillery. We were drenched to the skin, had had nothing
to eat, and had not slept; still there was nothing to do, but to
scrap it out, and all morning hour after hour, we lay in a wood
and fired, and fired at Germans and more Germans, who kept
coming, and all the time it poured great guns and still we
had nothing to eat. By afternoon we had to retreat, so as not
to be surrounded. I thought we were going back to where
we came from, but it was nothing of the kind. We did go up
the range, but instead of going down the opposite slope, turned
to the right and by night, we were again over Steinbach only
more to one side. We had one more night in the rain. We
ate a few sardines, and some hardtack. We learned we would
attack the next morning. The next morning it was found that
we had lost too many men to attack. In the afternoon we
were attacked, but we got out of that O. K. Still by 11
P. M. our commandant judged it was time to clear out, so we
marched out quietly, one by one, found the trail as best we
could in the dark. By 6 A. M., we were back to safety in
the city of Thann, but needless to say that we were absolutely
all in. We had hardly slept or eaten for three days and at
times our clothes had frozen stiff on us. We had lost five
hundred and twenty-five men, out of the fourteen hundred,
so the whole thing could not be called a success. It would
have been one if we had had five companies to reinforce us
after we had taken the town. After that little expedition the
powers that be saw fit to leave us alone for a few days, then
Letters froin a Chasseur a Pied 59
they sent us to keep a mountain pass, Sudel, near the Guebwiller
mountains, and we were there over Christmas and New Year's
to the middle of January. It was cold. There was a lot of
snow and a lot of work, but no danger. The Germans came
only a few times and we called on them once or twice. We
only lost one man and that was really an accident. While we
were up there Steinbach was recaptured as you may have read
in the papers. It had to be taken house by house, and to think
that we had got hold of it a few weeks before, without any
very serious losses. January 14 we came down from our moun-
tain pass to sleep and wash, and January 18 we were ordered to
occupy the new trenches, dug in front of the reconquered
Steinbach, so up the range we went and down the other side,
going over territory that was but too well known. We struck it
rich again. It got cold and we could never light any fires for
fear of artillery. Our cooks had to establish their kitchen a good
mile back of the second line, and even then they were bom-
barded. Two were killed while trying to bring us our dinner.
I staid up there only nine days, because I got hit as I tolcj
you above, but my poor friends remained three weeks on duty"
and were bombarded practically every day. They repulsed
three attacks, lost their machine guns twice, and won them
back each time by counter attacking at night, and each time
gathering a respectable number of prisoners. On the whole we
suffered mainly from exposure. There were hundreds of our
men, who had to be sent away, because of frozen toes, frozen
feet or bronchitis. The whole region around Steinbach is now
hideous. The town is deserted and completely wrecked. The
fields and vineyards all about are honeycombed with pits, made
by the explosion of shells. The trees in the orchards are cov-
ered with a thick coating of red earth. Before the trenches
in front of barbed wire tangles there are horrible sights. If
anything on earth can give a good idea of Hell, it is the region
60 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
between Steinbach and Uffholz. If this is not the last Euro-
pean war it is because all of us Europeans are stark mad. It
is pitiful to ride through the country now. One sees only
women and children and old men. All wars are bad, that's
certain, but as they go and so far as we are concerned, this one
is certainly a fairly honorable one. France has at least as much
right to exist as Germany.
Translated from Diary
At Lajus the old lady told me that German soldiers had a
hang-dog look in the presence of their officers; they remained
bare-headed, dared not call their souls their own. Their com-
manding officer was heard saying, "Why this war? Why this
war?" He paid twelve cents when he was asked six, etc. The
soldiers took to shooting the poultry promiscuously and he had
them shot in order to save the fowls. And yet two "castles"
owned by Germans, one at Selles, the other the hideous struc-
tures at the end of La Trouche, were both filled with supplies
for the German troops.
We left La Trouche on December 10th; we went down to
La Pecherie where we were nicely quartered in a hay loft.
We were expecting to spend some time there, but twenty-four
hours after our arrival, the quartermasters were hurrying about
we ate at 4 P. M., started at 6 and, after waiting for hours
in the rain at Saint-Michel-sur-Meurthe, we rode in a bag-
gage car; as we were forty in one car we could not all get
seated at once. On arrival, rain in torrents, we ate a few sar-
dines, then marched towards the frontier. When we reached
Wesserling we were all in ; we were lame and completely be-
spattered with mud. It was not the length of the trip that told
on us, but rather the lack of sleep and of food. My section
being on duty Goujon treated us to a mess of sweetbreads. The
mayor and his daughter thinking that we might be allowed to
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 61
be quartered in private houses, had beds ready for us. Kindly
French people they were, and we found in this town a much
more cordial welcome than in the Vosges.
As sentries we were requested to watch the church steeple!
What nonsense a man was said to be in the church under
the pretense of mending the furnace likely at 9 P. M. !
The old servant of the priest discovered me behind the
church. I told her to go in. What do you think she wanted
to do? She was planning to go all over the village in search
of the officers which were to spend the night at the parsonage.
She wanted to hurry them up, for the priest had gone to bed
and she, not feeling very well, wished also to retire.
Translated from the Diary
How THE NIGHT WAS SPENT NEAR STEINBACH
Rain in torrents and thick mud. We placed our afghans
under the tent-flaps and we settled for the night as best we
could. Suddenly, from the valley flashes of light shone bril-
liantly, passing over the forest, they crept slowly towards us
and finally rested right above our heads. We huddled together
in the mud, but we had to go through the same ordeal over and
over again. Sometimes, when we least expected, the ligh'
would go out suddenly, and at the very moment when we tried
to lift ourselves out of the mud, the lights shone again brightly.
Thus we might have been very easily spotted. Well, it was
an awful night. Again and again I rose and walked about.
The men, singly or in groups, with their heads and shoulders
shrouded in tent-flaps, formed ghostly masses. We could not
stack our guns because the flashing bayonets would have been
too easily detected ; they were lying in the mud of the trenches
useless and in many cases entirely unavailable. The time spent
62 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
in our last stopping place was most trying; we were all dis-
couraged, we thought we would have to attack immediately and
our strength failed us; no food, no sleep, no officers exhaust-
ing marches and as far as we could see no definite purpose.
Gras, the lieutenant, had been asked to take command, and I
had been appointed agent de liaison pro tern.
Tuesday morning Gras asked me to find out how many
cartridges were still to be had; then I fetched for our new
commandant his horse and while we were standing around
him thoroughly disheartened, he gave us our supply of
cartridges.
Suddenly on the road we saw coming at a triple gallop a
tall man on a large horse, it was the head major who roared
from afar, "The attack is to be postponed. Captain de la
Baume is strictly forbidden to attack!" We all heaved a sigh
of relief. Meanwhile the horse wanted to go straight on;
his master wanted him to go up-hill. Finally the spurs had to
be used to make the reluctant beast mind. What a man, that
head major!
I spent the whole morning waiting for orders from the lieu-
tenant; he did not give any. Wednesday about midnight our
cook awakened us. Take your knapsacks. An attack is no
longer possible. An hour later our section stood at the edge
of the forest, we met the others at the crossroads a little farther
on, some men were missing, one or two here and there, for-
gotten sentries or smart fellows who had found comfortable
places where they could sleep soundly and who at the last
minute could not be found by their corporals. We started, it
was pitch dark, one man only, at the head of our single file,
carried a lantern; the others had to flounder in the dark. It
is the hardest trip I have ever taken, the damp afghan weighed
tons. I felt the pangs of an empty stomach; at most we had
had two hours of sleep and the nights had been preceded by the
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 63
most exhausting days. Very steep path, rolling stones at every
step. I kept hitting against the tin dish of the man who walked
ahead of me. When I felt too weak, I ate a piece of bully
beef, but I was awfully thirsty, for my flask had been left on
the top of the hill at the time of the sudden surprise. I saw
stars and sparks dancing before my eyes; occasionally I would
catch a glimpse of another man's gun. It was a regular retreat.
The one thing which kept up our courage was the certainty
that we were not going to attack on the following day. Finally
we heard that we were going to Thann. At last the lights
of Mulhausen grew dimmer and dimmer; we were on our way
towards the reconquered part of Alsace. About 8 A. M. we
found quarters in a factory between Bishwiller and Thann.
64
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
December llth, 1914.
We have left our positions all of a sudden being replaced
by still more ancient troops. I conclude that our positions had
no great strategic value since they entrusted them to plain or-
dinary line infantry. We are out of the danger zone, loafing
about in a small village near St.-Die. It seems that they are
forming a new army of which we are going to be a part.
Where it will be sent, is a great mystery. Some say we are
going North, others in the Argonne region, others in Alsace.
I think the last surmise is the correct one and that we will
be sent to Mulhausen and neighborhood. There is a big lot
of troops moving back and forth just now. I am glad to be
out of the thickly wooded region. It's pretty wet at this
time of the year and pretty dark.
We will be here a few days more; then we may move on
to Epinal. This life is uncertainty itself, but that has its
charm. Mail reaches us O.K. by same address.
We are having regular Spring weather.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 65
December 23d, 1914.
Since our fight at Steinbach, we had three days of rest be-
tween Thann and Bishviller in eastern Alsace; then we were
trotted up to this little mountain village, or hamlet rather,
to spend the night. The next day we walked up a few miles
to the height of land and took charge of the avant-postes along
the crest. I guess we are distinctly mountain troops, for we
are always kept on ridges. This time we were at an altitude
of about 4,000 feet, like Kearsarge in N. H. The alpine
troops had built fine log-houses, with stoves and all we had to
do was sentinel work six hours in twenty-four to keep spies,
scouts and patrol in a respectful state of mind. Nothing at all
happened at my post and I enjoyed the scenery. There are just
a few inches of snow the clingy kind which remains like
furry-muffs about the twigs. Before us we had the Rhine
Valley with the hills of the Black Forest in the distance. To
eht right the serrated outline of the Bernese Alps and, I think,
of that old friend of you and me, the Jungfrau. Who would
have thought last year that I would see these mountains from
that point of view and under such circumstances?
We expected to stay up there five days and five nights, but
we were replaced without warning this afternoon by alpine
troops. We have only come down to the nearest hamlet and
expect to go back there in a day or two. We don't know what's
going on in the rest of the world. I have not seen an up-to-
date paper for a deuce of a while, but one thing is sure. We
hold the crests and mountain tops of Alsace all the way, and
if we wanted to bombard their cities as they bombarded ours,
nothing would be easier. Our guns, great big eight-inch, long
66 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
distance guns, are trained on the valley and something will
happen one of these days; only we don't fire on civilians the
way they do. I don't believe they feel very easy in their minds,
as at night we constantly hear trains rumbling along near
Mulhausen and they can only be troop trains.
This is not a cold winter, but nevertheless night watches
are pretty chilly at this altitude, so our benevolent government
has given us sheepskins (not Ph.D. diplomas) with the wool on.
There is a hole for the head and strings to tie to the body.
With these contraptions on, we must look like Biblical char-
acters looking for grasshoppers to feed. It keeps us warm
O. K.
I will write again Christmas day if they leave us here in
peace.
From the diary Spies at Thann have been forwarding in-
formation by means of bottles thrown into the river. If at
Steinbach our artillery did not give us support in time it was
because the telephone wire had been cut down by a German
officer disguised as a woman, they say.
The small, isolated farms in the mountains are held more
or less in suspicion. Here in Goldbach part of the popula-
tion is evidently hostile. They are bringing up here barbed
wire and planks in large quantities ; the village is full of mules.
One would think they are intending to build fortified camps
on all the crests. To-night is Christmas eve, 1914.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 67
Christmas, 1914.
To His NIECE, L. A.
Pardon this dingy looking paper. Supplies will get mussed
up. I received your letter the day before Christmas, and
Marie's and Peg's the day after; your mother's with yours,
so had a fine celebration. I thank you all you dear ones,
from the depths of my heart, for your greeting and also for
the gold which I can't use now, but which will come in very
handy next time we reach a town.
We celebrated Christmas eve with the help of the govern-
ment which being paternal, gave us green peas, boudin and
first-class white wine in addition to the usual stuff, but we were
kept on the jump all day because of a possible attack in the
back hills; an attack which did not materialize, fortunately.
The main interest now comes from the fact that we have hit
it rich in getting quarters. We (our squad), twelve men and
a corporal known as the "Cabo," are with a lovely Alsatian
family or rather the women of the family, for the three men
are with the German army somewhere. We sleep on brand-
new hay. I mean hay that has not been slept on before; we
roam at will through the kitchen and the sitting room; we
can buy milk and butter and get our clothes washed at ridicu-
lous prices; we can always get next to a roaring fire. It is
mighty good, only it may not last long, because in two days
we will receive reinforcements, to make up for what we lost
in our last expedition, and then we will be off again to guard
the crests. Since Christmas afternoon, heavy guns and small
guns have been roaring in a way defying description down the
valley in the direction of Mulhausen. We don't know what
has happened yet, but there certainly has been some fighting.
68 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Yesterday, two German headsergeants were brought in. One
of them was the only survivor of his section (sixty men).
They had attacked the alpine troops in the morning and prac-
tically the whole company had been cleared out. One of these
men made a pretty fine appearance. Everybody admired him
ior his bearing, and our captain saluted him graciously, but
he seemed to see no one at all. He was very different from
the fat bald-headed German whom we corralled when we took
the village two weeks ago; also different from a skinny officer
whom our adjutant caught in the brush near said village. The
prisoners we get now tell us that they have just come from
Dixmude to Alsace. I don't see any quick termination to this
war. Our troops are piling in rapidly and we have a lot of
heavy pieces, but the Dutch are not what you might call in-
active, and it's raining so that the valley must be a regular
swamp. I have an idea that they are going to keep us in the
mountains as the line infantry make terrible work of it as
soon as they leave the level country. In the house where we
are, there are a dozen artillerymen hailing from Nice and neigh-
borhood. They add to our enjoyment of life. They have the
real southern accent; at night they play the Merry Widow,
Sousa's March, Sous les Fonts de Paris and other classic music
on their "flageolets," a kind of flute with very few holes. For
that matter, there are some of these gentlemen quartered else-
where in the hamlet and if you step out of the house at night
you can hear these flageolets all over the neighborhood. At
the same time the guns are booming in the valley. There was
another musical contrast Sunday. We were on duty that
is. our company spent all day on the village square in case some-
thing should happen. I was seated on the wall which is about
the graveyard and the guns in the valley made a sort of bass
to the music which accompanied the celebration of the mass
within the little church. Men become religious in war time.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 69
On Christmas day our officers went to mass in state and style.
Yesterday I had some fun watching various kinds of "chasseurs"
and dragoons and muleteers and artillery men sneaking into
the church, coming by the back way and progressing cautiously
and somewhat sheepishly towards the church, opening the
door stealthily and entering crab fashion. Bold bad boys in
ordinary times and weather, but made meek by the events.
Great surprise to write this. I moved to the next cottage.
The girl in the house was born in Buffalo, N. Y. Came to
Alsace when seven months old, knowledge of English limited,
but the mother remembers hard times during the Cleveland
administration. She remained in the United States two years
only.
I wish we might spend the winter together in Europe;
perhaps some day we will. Nothing like keeping up hope.
I think I know what you mean when you say that Europe
helped you understanding America. One thing is certain
Americans have fine traits which Europeans will get from them
in course of time. A freedom from certain harmful traditions,
your judgments are less warped than those of Europeans when
it comes to right and wrong in politics particularly it seems
to me. I am messing this up, not having thought it out
enough. Will report later. Give my love to all. I will keep
the family posted on all excitement as much as small facilities
will allow. I hear from John quite often. He keeps me sup-
plied with tobacco, chocolate and sardines in a way that would
do credit to the administration of the Republic. Good bye,
Youngest, and best wishes.
70 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Goldbach, December 25th, 1914.
ToB :
This is Christmas night and the first one of its kind for me,
as for many others. We are still at Goldbach, a few miles
from Thann. We are apparently waiting for things to happen.
Troops and more troops keep coming up and taking positions
along the mountain side. It's mainly artillery and mountain in
fantry.
All day long they kept telling us to be ready to leave at any
minute, so we were kept in suspense, but nothing happened un-
til 4 this afternoon, when my escouade was told to go to the
guardhouse for the night and do the police duty of the town.
I have just been relieved from the post at the end of the tow r n
and I am writing at the guardhouse, which is simply a school-
house converted in warlike fashion. I am seated at the desk, my
natural place. Last night being Christmas eve, we celebrated
a little. The government treated us to green peas, blood
sausages, a superior kind of white wine and sweet crackers.
That well meant mess was distributed in addition to the usual
"feed." I partook of it and as a result have been a physical
wreck all day nearly, in spite of the fact that I managed to
get a feather bed to sleep on last night.
The people of this town seem to be sharply divided in their
opinions. They either like or dislike us. At the house and
barn where we were day before yesterday, they hated the sight
of us. They tried to keep us from sleeping on their hay; they
would not let our cooks into their kitchen, and we did not get
a look inside the house. In addition they made faces at us
when they went or came. Fortunately we were made to move
to another place after twenty-four hours, and we were very
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 71
well received in our new quarters. Our cooks were given the
freedom of the kitchen range, and all of us were let into the
lower rooms in which we could sit down, warm ourselves and
write. There are only women in the house. The grandmother
remembers having been French before 1870. She still speaks
broken French. She has some of your sister's principles about
smoking in the house. As it was getting pretty thick with
smoke in the sitting room she asked us to quit, and we did
very promptly as she was a dear old lady. But she was filled
with remorse after her request and she trotted over to a sort
of bureau, pulled out a little black box from a drawer and
passed it around it was snuff! All who partook sneezed with
a will. It was she who got me a feather bed in her grandson's
house. I hope I shall be able to say goodbye to her before we
leave. If it hadn't been for this fool guardhouse business, I
could have spent another night in regal luxury.
I wish we knew where we are going next. This is a life of
great geographical instability.
Sometime ago my brother shipped me a load of chocolate,
cigarette tobacco and canned goods, which reached me to-day,
so that I had a Christmas tree of my own.
I was going to forget to tell you that the old lady at the
house took me in an inner room last night and showed me
what they had prepared for the children. It was a little barn
made out of pink paper. Inside, together with lighted can-
dles, were the Christ child in the manger, the ox and the ass
to the left and right, the Wise Men all about. She told me
that the war might stop soon after Christmas, because already
once before in history just at that time of the year, Jesus had
taken time by the foot and made him change his course.
People out here are very religious. Also to my amazement,
our officers seem to be religiously inclined. They all went to
mass this morning. I don't know whether it's because they
72
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
really want to or because they want to show unity of sentiment
with the reconquered people of Alsace. Religion and politics
usually go hand in hand in the army.
I only have four cents' worth of stamps left. I hope the
United States mail will be merciful.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 73
January 7th, 1915.
To B :
Our life is so taken up with trifles ; we get into a real house
so seldom that writing is still very difficult. I am worried
about you. It's a long time since I have had a letter. I am
wondering whether something is the matter or whether it's
simply the mail service. We have had piles of snow, then a
two days' rain and the result on mountain roads is wonderful.
Our mules lie down et ne veulent plus rien savoir. I don't
know when we shall be in a village again. We are living in
log houses up in the mountains. Every other day we sleep in
a farm house. If the weather were not so damnable, it would
be pretty good fun, but this is not real winter weather, more
like New England in March, late March, with some snow
but more mud and a most damnable wind.
The Dutch keep themselves in the valley bottoms. Hope
they stay there.
74
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
January llth, 1915.
To B :
I have received your New Year's letter and was much re-
lieved as I had begun to fear that you were sick.
Nothing new. We still live much like lumbermen in snow
and rain and are none the worse for it. There has not been
much fighting in the hills. Too much snow. The town which
I helped capture on December 13th and which was recaptured
by the Dutch is ours again. This is a rotten war. Neither
side can lick the other, I think.
Will write again if I get to a town in a few days as is
rumored.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 75
January 14th, 1915.
To B :
We are at last in a little town after a month spent either
in a diminutive hamlet or out in the woods. This business of
seeing that no Dutch come over a mountain pass is no joke
when the weather is bad. What made things worse was the
fact that the officer commanding the company is very young
(he replaced our regular captain who was killed last month)
and he was scared blue of not holding that pass and so made
our work twice as hard as was needed. Every other day we
were on guard every third hour for twenty-four hours and
mainly during raging snow storms. Fortunately it was never
very cold. There was no shooting to speak of. We were
shelled once or twice but no one was hurt.
Now we are going to be allowed to sleep a day or two ; then
we will go off to some other place, no one knows where. Such
is life in the army, alternations of boredom with excessive
excitement.
I wish I knew what percentage of my letters reach you
you mention mainly cards received and so does my family.
There must be piles of writings from my pen stored up some-
where.
This town saintamarin, which I write in one word to fool
the censorship, is very friendly to us. The old barber who
fixed me up this morning has one son in the German army;
the other one is with us, and the father mourns for the fate
of his German son. There are tragedies of this kind all over
Alsace.
I don't see the end of this war at all. Both sides are deter-
mined to win out and after tremendous efforts either side may
76 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
have won one-quarter or one-half mile of territory! It costs
at times the lives of several hundred men to win an advance
of fifty yards! Those people in the United States who clamor
for armament can't begin to know what they are doing or
with what pernicious kind of fire they are playing. I am told
that the Hearst papers are campaigning in favor of Germany
vs. the Allies. It's not wonderful that this master opportunist
should have snatched up such a dandy cause. I don't believe
that he can swing popular opinion. Americans love force, but
they despise treason and sneakiness. I don't believe the Germans
will recover from their nasty actions just because Hearst talks
in their favor.
I shall write again as soon as I know what is doing. I shan't
seal this letter, hoping that it may go more easily.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 77
January 14th, 1915.
To A :
We have just spent three weeks on the mountain. The
weather was detestable. We are very happy to be in a little
town. O, the delight of having one's hair cut, the joy of
shaving. We wash our hands many times a day. Up there,
we could wash only once every three days and sometimes not
even so often. Civilization has its advantages. We are going
to be sent somewhere else, I don't know where; uncertainty
belongs to military life, but what surprises me is that condi-
tions which in ordinary life would develop pleurisy, pneumonia,
rheumatism and a thousand fatal diseases, do not even cause
a cold when we are soldiering. It is really puzzling.
I am glad you heard Brieux. I have read about ten of his
plays. I always liked him because of his virility. He stands
in fine contrast with a good many of our modern writers who
are altogether too supple. From a moral standpoint I hate
flabbiness. I am more of a Huguenot than most people think.
Up there, the Germans would shoot at us, using little moun-
tain cannon of Austrian make. All they could do was to nick
off the edge of some rocks, make holes in the snow and bring
down some branches from the trees. Again and again they sent
patrols which went down double-quick. We also went
patrolling in their direction and we came back quite rapidly.
Patrolling is fun of a mild type. One starts through the forest,
rifle in hand, going from one tree to the next like Gustave
Aymard's heroes. You think all the time that you are going to
meet a Boche face to face. Most of the time you do not see
anything at all or you exchange shots from idiotic distances.
One day, one of the Blues, a boy twenty years old, came down
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
like a gust of wind German patrol thirty meters off!
Another man and I went to investigate. It was a picket fence
which, piercing through the snow, simulated pointed helmets.
On the other hand a man from the Vosges told us he could
see magpies; and by gum the Germans were there.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 79
January 28th, 1915.
To A :
I am now at the bottom of a valley enjoying profound peace
after a week filled with whizzing of shells and reports of guns.
Fortunately there has been on both sides more noise than
mischief, but as far as noise was concerned I assure you it
was a success. One day I counted in eleven minutes, eighty-
two shells bursting close by us. Henceforth, Fourth of July
celebration will not make any impression on me. We spent as
much as seventy-two hours at a stretch in open trenches, at
different intervals; we came out of these trenches as red as
devils, for the earth is of the same shade as the soil which
forms Mount Tom, or rather, Titan's pier. Fortunately the
winter is very mild. There is a little snow, but the cold does
not compare with Northampton weather and yet some poor
fellows manage to get their feet frozen, or rather, frostbitten,
and in consequence of this they suffer cruel pains, but they
have also the advantage of spending a few peaceful days in the
infirmary. Well it is a wretched business and I hope this war
will close by the end of the summer. In my opinion there is
no possibility of a complete victory either for them or for us.
The nations will have to come to their senses! But to know
that our country did not wish to go to war is for me a great
source of strength and courage.
80 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
January 28th, 1915.
To B :
We have had a most strenuous week just where the foot-
hills merge into the plains. We could not light any fires at
any time for fear of being discovered by the artillery, and as
they did not know otherwise than in a general way about
our location, they just rained shells on the whole neighborhood.
We spent two days in shelters trenches covered with heavy
beams, and two days in open trenches. The main trouble was
in going from one to the other over open spaces. We made
the trips at such convenient times as 2 A. M., etc. In one
case I counted eighty shells which exploded near us during
a walk of eleven minutes and yet no one was hurt!
Now I am at rest in a little town on the other side of the]
mountains. I don't know when we shall go back to the shell
region. More troops are piling in, but so far as I can see the
war is as much of a deadlock as ever ; either side is strong
enough to check the other but not strong enough to lick it.
What with the snow and the shells (not egg shells) the
mail is upset so our correspondence is bound to be again one
sided for a time.
I have seen some amazing things this last week. I can't
write about them now, but I shall tell you all about them.
The French are a pretty brave race, believe me, and the only
real darn fools in the lot are those who write novels about
them. If I ever get back to Stanford I shall give a course
on the French novel with a view to rehabilitating the race.
I am putting all manners of curious and interesting facts in
my diary, which one hundred years from now should be worth
millions of dollars from an historical standpoint.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 81
We have been very fortunate in the weather it snows a
little, but never gets very cold ; nothing like New England
winters. I don't believe the thermometer ever got below
twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit this past week. It thaws in day
time and if you could see us when we come out of the trenches
you would not think we were human beings, being actually
plastered with red mud from head to toe.
Well, goodbye for the present. Write as often as you can
?.nd keep up our cause in the United States.
82
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Givors, Rhone.
Dear Mr. M :
Thank you for your good letter, which came to
me in Alsace at the infirmary, where I was nursing a
lame shoulder. I am now in France doing the same thing, but
in a week or ten days I expect to be fit for service again. But
before going back to the front to the meat shop, as we say
here I shall have a week to myself, and shall spend it with
my brother, who is in the engineer corps very near here.
The story of the Kilkenny cats certainly gives a good idea
of the war in its present stage. Men in trenches take pops at
each other through loopholes, while waiting for the artillery
to demolish the mud walls of the other side. Whenever this
is done successfully, there are attacks, usually followed by coun-
ter-attacks, and when a few hundred men have been killed on
one side or the other, quiet reigns again, and as a rule the
relative positions of the opponents have suffered very little
change. More Germans are apt to fall than Frenchmen for the
simple reason that they attack in close formations, in long col-
umns, four men from left to right marching elbow to elbow.
All we have to do is to keep cool and fire into the moving mass.
We on the other hand, attack as individuals scattered on a
very wide front. Each man runs, and then lies down, gets
up and runs again, taking advantage of every rock or tree,
trunk or depression in the ground. When the barbed wire
entanglements are reached, however, the slaughter on the two
sides is about equal. To get over a fence you must show your-
self. And the fences in question are very complex, the wires
standing chin high and extending back ten, fifteen or twenty
feet in a hopeless tangle. Sometimes there are two or three
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 83
sets of wires ; wires running so close to the ground that the dead
leaves cover them up and you are tripped up before you see
them; wires so arranged as to lead into a labyrinth of other
wires, etc. You can neither jump over nor crawl under, and
unless the artillery fire has been very accurate, when a body
of troops reaches these wires it is all up with them. In the
vast majority of cases he who attacks is lost.
Still a day is coming when the deadlock will be broken.
Enormous forces will be concentrated on one point and the
barrier broken. One thing I saw clearly on my trip from
Alsace to France, namely, that our trenches are being held by a
comparatively small number of men who have not left the front
since the beginning of the war, while the various "depots" of
the country are filled with fresh troops. I believe there are
more soldiers in these recruiting camps than at the front. Some
fine day those who are in the trenches now are going to step
aside and let the fresh troops go by them to find out whether
or not the artillery has properly plowed up the wire regions, and
on that day it will have been plowed up in fine style.
In the Vosges the wild boars are plentiful, and many have
had their hides pierced by watchful sentinels who at night took
their nosing about in the dry leaves and their snorting for
signs of an approaching German patrol. Yea, there are times
when both sides get tired of shooting and not a gunshot is heard
for days. In the Vosges there was a saw-mill which stood
between the two lines at the bottom of a gorge. Scouting par-
ties from both sides were sent there from time to time to see
what was going on. One day our men found a piece of paper
nailed in a conspicuous place. On it was written in Germanized
French : "You leave us alone and we will leave you alone."
84 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Givors, Rhone, France.
Dear Friend:
The winter, fortunately for us, has been very mild,
and only wounded men, who could not be picked up, have
perished from cold; but, nevertheless, it has been pretty tough.
We have spent some damnable nights in the mud with
drenched or frozen clothing. Many men have had their feet
partly frozen, and have suffered frightful pains as a result.
To answer your questions: Usually back of the trenches,
sometimes a few hundred yards, sometimes a mile or
two, there are shelters, either log houses or dugouts, covered
over with logs and earth. If a company has charge of
a certain length of trenches, it is divided into two shifts. One
is on duty in the trench while the other remains behind to rest,
but always ready to move up at a second's notice. The guns
are stacked in front of the shelters, and the men must never take
off any part of their equipment. The men in the trenches are
not permitted to sleep, even if they stay on duty twenty-four or
forty-eight hours. But, of course, they will sometimes doze off.
In some trenches they can lie down. Often they can only sit
up. But whether lying or sitting, they must have their guns
close by them, and whether in the trenches or in the shelters
they have only the bare earth to sit or lie on. Everything is so
damp that it is better to have no straw, for vermin soon develops
in wet straw. One gets used to that kind of life. I have
seen men so tired out that they slept soundly in snow or in pud-
dles of water.
Weeks may go by without a shot being fired. On the other
hand trenches may be bombarded by artillery fire day after day
and attacked over and over again. Or you may have to attack
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 85
yourself, and then you are sure that a good many men are
going to get killed or maimed.
In mountainous regions, such as the part of Alsace where we
were last, all supplies have to be brought on the backs of mules
over pretty bad trails. It takes a train of about eighty mules
to bring a day's food for a regiment. This part of the service is
admirably organized. In spite of bad weather and deep snow,
we have received our food very regularly. Once in a while we
have been a day or two without eating, but that was due, not
to lack of food, but to inability to cook it. In such cases the
smoke from the cooks' fires gave our positions away, and shells
fell thick and fast in our kitchens, driving the best-intentioned
cooks to cover.
In the first line trenches the food is usually cold. It may
have to be cooked a mile or two back from the firing line, and
it can be brought only late at night or before sunrise. The
men who drive the mules have a hard time of it. They have to
travel over the trails at night, because all day the Germans fire
shells on the roads back of the line to prevent any one from
coming up with reinforcements or food. Our artillery, of
course, does the same thing to them.
German shells make a tremendous noise when they explode
and kick up an incredible amount of dirt; yet unless they fall
on a group of men they do comparatively little harm. One
week they fired an average of 3,000 shells a day on the trench
where I was, but they killed only about a dozen men. Such
weeks, however, are pretty trying, as you may imagine. The
shells explode in front of you, behind you and on either side
of you, and you keep wondering whether the next one will not
drop right on you. Fragments of shell and pieces of rock fly
all around, branches are chopped off right over your head. It
is no fake at all, and it is a veritable miracle that so few are
killed.
86 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
After all, it is the rifle fire and the machine guns which do
most damage. The day before I left the front I saw eighty men
start on with a rush to capture a stretch of trenches. Twenty
came back. The others were nearly all shot through the head.
May peace come soon.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 87
Givors, Rhone, February 24th, 1914.
To Mr. D. C :
For a whole month I have been doing nothing
but loaf and travel. I received a superficial cut in the
shoulder from a shell fragment on the night of January 23d
and 24th. It became impossible for me to carry the equipment
necessary in the business. So I stepped out of the trench, shook
hands all around and made for the field hospital a mile and a
half back of the firing line. They dressed up my cut and I
proceeded to walk to the infirmary eight miles away, on the
other side of a mountain range. It was a great feeling of relief
to get out of the range of shells, as I thought. Up in the
trenches, near Steinbach (Alsace), we had been bombarded
mildly or furiously every blessed day for a week and a half.
Besides we had slept very little, eaten mainly cold stuff and had
not once been able to warm our toes by a fire as any smoke at
all gave the Dutch a clue to our position. I slept like a brute
for twelve hours, ate a lot and felt fine, but the very next day I
was aroused from my nap by a too-familiar hissing and whist-
ling sound followed by a grand general blowing up. Those
damned Germans had seen fit to heave a few shells, casually
like, over the mountain on the town. Fortunately only two
shells exploded. Four soldiers were hurt, one woman and two
children killed. One of those two shells fell right side of the
infirmary.
After such a good beginning, we thought that the town was
going to be bombarded every day, but such was not the case.
An aeroplane did come four or five times and dropped bombs
but that does not amount to much as these projectiles very
often fall in ploughed fields, in rivers, in snowbanks, etc. It
88 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
seems to be very difficult to aim from an aero. Of course
bombs that fall on soft ground don't explode.
If the Germans don't give in, and it's idiotic to hope that
they will, there's going to be a tremendous loss of life during
the next phase of the war. Well, anyway, we shall be righting
side by side with the troops from Ireland. If you had only
taught me a little Irish in the old days I might be able, next
spring, to get on the right side of your compatriots. I have
already met some Englishmen. The ambulances which carry
wounded men out of Alsace have ^English chauffeurs. I had
a great talk with one of them. He was full of business, hop-
ing fervently that within a brief space of time the whole Ger-
man race would be erased off the planet. While waiting for
that happy event he and his car worked night and day. Each
trip he would begin operations by giving cigarettes to all the
men in his car. As he could speak very little French he pro-
ceeded mainly by gracious gestures and play of the features that
would have delighted our old and much abused teacher,
Auntie H .
If you feel like writing send your letter to Valence as my
whereabouts may be uncertain for some time to come.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 89
Weiler, February 1, 1915.
To B :
Your last letter (January 6th) came right after I
had written to you on coming down from the trenches for a
rest.
These days I am leading a perfectly animal life. It is so
good to be able to warm oneself "a volonte," to eat warm
things, and to sleep twelve hours at a lick after nine days in and
about trenches and under a shower of shot averaging from
1,000 to 1,500 shells a day.
We had a scare the day after I reached here. I was asleep
when I thought I heard the too-well known hissing of a shell.
When I woke up fully they were bringing in two men, one
hurt in the foot, the other in the side. In addition a woman
had been killed as she was coming out of her front door and
an "alpin" also killed behind the house. That shell came from
the other side of the range. It had gone nearly ten miles to do
the mischief. We expected a regular bombardment, but that
was all, and that was enough. That's the most disgusting thing
about war, the killing of civilians.
We with uniforms expect trouble, but who can become re-
conciled to a state of affairs that kills blindly? A German aer
flew over Thann yesterday, threw a bomb casually and killed
women and children. The more I see of war, the less I respect
it. It is fundamentally inane. That does not mean that I
regret that France pitched in. Quite to the contrary. It was
high time for her to do so.
Only it's idiotic to allow the development of conditions which
gradually bring on war. I do hope that your country will be
able to check the wave of militarism which the Republicans, I
90
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
believe, are trying to set going. If you start fooling with that
kind of nonsense you are sure to develop a wrong kind of pa-
triotism and to end up in bloodshed.
Well, good-bye for to-day. Keep up good courage.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 91
Weiler, February 5, 1915.
To Mr. G :
My poor battalion had again a devil of a time.
We took up trenches between Steinbach and UfTholz.
The same are so placed that the Boches can bombard them
abundantly from the plain with guns mounted on auto trucks
and therefore not to be spotted by our artillery. The result has
been that they have repeatedly demolished part of our trenches
then attacked those parts and captured them by dusk. We have
counter-attacked after dark and recaptured them with the
bayonet. The sum total of the fighting being 00 since we
regained what we had lost and nothing more. Bloody and
idiotic, but pretty necessary from our standpoint at least since
we must hold the foothills at any cost.
There is something ridiculous in the contrast between the
amount of steel thrown, of air displaced, of dirt thrown up and
actual harm done. Some days ago we received about 3,000 or
4,000 big shells, "marmites" which dig in the earth holes big
enough to bury a horse and our losses could be counted on the
fingers of two hands.
92 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Translated from the French.
Weiler, February 6, 1915.
To A :
I have been worried by your last letter because
I saw that you were too anxious about me. I hasten to
tell you that at the present time I am in complete security and,
in all probability, this state of things will last through February
and perhaps even beyond that time.
To-day my poor battalion is completing its third week of first
line service, three weeks in the trenches between Steinbach and
Ufrholz, and our men are in a state of health which is far
from being satisfactory. Almost all of them, having had their
feet more or less frozen, suffer cruel pains. It will be absolutely
necessary to let this poor battalion rest for a while, because,
having remained too long in a sitting position, the men are no
longer able to stand on their feet.
I am in very good health because I remained only nine days
over there. We went up on the 18th of January and on the
23d, during the night, I received on the left shoulder a slap
which made it permissible for me to enter the infirmary three
days later, and ever since I have been here sleeping and eating
copiously.
I had fully made up my mind not to mention to you the slap
but John writes me that you complain I am gilding the pill
for you. Pero hombre! it is a libel and henceforth I will not fail
to report even a cold.
My battalion covered itself with glory. It was mentioned
in the order of the day, both before and after I went away.
The Boches bombarded us daily with unheard of violence, then
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 93
as we were greatly outnumbered by them, they attacked us
three times in succession. The first time we lost a small part
of a trench, and it was on that occasion, while on sentinel duty
that I was hit. On all other occasions the Boches were driven
back with such losses and in such confusion that had we had a
battalion to support us we would have taken Cernay and
made a clean sweep of it all. It seems that the prisoners we
took were completely demoralized. In connection with this
encounter they tell a story worthy of Corneille. The captain
of the sixth company wounded, stretched full length on the
ground, was giving orders the best he could. Being in great
need of reinforcement, he sent word to the commandant who
had not one man to spare. The commandant answered: As
reinforcement here I am! And without wasting time he
jumped into the trench, revolver in hand. Great enthusiasm.
Everybody followed him and those of the poor Germans who
do not fall dead, run like rabbits. And what do you think
was the net result of a furious bombardment which lasted
nearly two weeks and which was followed by three attacks?
We kept all our positions. It seems little, but in fact we ac-
complished a great deal, for the Germans, through the valley,
receive all the troops they need and they concentrate their
forces as they please. On our side, in the gorges and on the
crests, it is very difficult for us to receive any reinforcement,
because behind us we have a mountain range crossed only by
mule trails. Of course I did not see the commandant when
he made his hit, but the story is absolutely true, I know it for a
fact.
Aunt Marie and Aunt Pauline have just sent me another
package. That explains why my knapsack is full of dates,
figs, quinces and Suchard chocolate. At the same time John has
been sending me some nougat from Montelimar and I am daily
looking for some chocolate from Dulac. I fully expect after my
94 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
wound is healed that I will have to prolong my stay in the
hospital on account of gastric troubles.
Good-bye, my dear, do not worry until the middle of March
and even then don't.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 95
February 7, 1915.
To Mr. G :
For the last ten days I have been in the infirm-
ary, and I have a sneaking hope that I may be shipped
to a hospital one of these days, although my general health is
excellent. My trouble is a flesh wound of no particular conse-
quence, except for the fact that it is very well placed, right
under the cartridge belt strap (left) and the knapsack strap. I
can't be made to carry anything for some three weeks any-
way, and as the infirmary is very full, I am hoping that they
may send me away to make room for others.
My battalion had a devil of a time the second half of Jan-
uary. We went up the range and down the other side to take
up the trenches about Steinbach and Uffholz.
Hardly had we reached our positions than the Dutch began
to give signs of unusual activity. They began to bombard,
and they kept it up day after day. The first forty-eight hours
my company was held on reserve and all we could do was t
sit in covered trenches and listen to the shells burst in our
neighborhood. It was quite a stunt to get out at all as frag-
ments came buzzing along at any time. Although the explo-
sions took place near the regular trenches quite a distance from
us we could not have any fires because of the danger of being
spotted, and it was freezing pretty hard. Another thing, we
could not lie down. The covered ditches being too narrow,
we slept with our knees to our chin. The third and fourth
days we relieved the company in the first line trenches. The
one we occupied made me think of Dante's Inferno, the part
assigned to Brunette Latini, who runs madly on a sandy plain
under a rain of fire. The trench was in yellow mud. In the
96 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
front of it in the mud there were poor fellows stretched out in
their last sleep, fifteen or twenty of them. In addition many
humps over the field, all being hastily made graves. The
trench was German originally. It had been stormed by our
252nd regiment and turned around to face the German front.
The slaughter had been terrible. To our back and to
the right was the village of Steinbach, or rather the ghost of the
village. My company took it December 13th. It was retaken
by the Dutch. Soon after that, taken away from them by
line infantry, every house riddled with shot. Few roofs and
many black walls, the steeple showing the light right through
in a dozen places. To our left \vas the road of access, and
perhaps the most striking element in the picture, every square
yard ploughed up by exploded shells. There the earth was red,
just as it is near Holyoke. Well, the trees, fruits trees and the
vineyards were all red from the amount of dirt kicked up by
shells. While on duty we were bombarded reasonably well,
but no one was hurt. One of those big shells exploding is a
great sight. The dirt is kicked up as high as a three-story
house. A hole big enough to bury a horse is dug up. Stones
fly in all directions, and also fragments of metal weighing
pounds. Yet they do little harm considering the noise and the
fuss. If they fall on a group of ten or twenty men, they will
clean them all out, but they may fall ten yards away, and do
no harm. It stands to reason that soldiers do not stand in
groups under bombardment. The fifth day and the sixth we
were to be in the second line, they made us build an artillery
shelter in the back woods. All went serenely until about 4
P. M. There was just the regular number of shells, two or
three every five minutes, but at four, by gum, things began to
hum, and we received orders to move to the front P. D. Q.
My section started up, I pulled out my watch and started t
count. It took us eleven minutes to get to our second line
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 97
positions and in that time we received in front and back to the
right and left eighty-two shells. The noise and the stuff kicked
up and the branches cut made an "ensemble" impossible to de-
scribe, yet no one was hurt. Our adjutant turned once to
shout a command and got his mouth full of dirt. That was
all. To me our escaping scot free was a real miracle. Well,
the bombardment stopped and before we had time to get to the
first line the Dutch had grabbed hold of a bit of trench. All
we could do was to dig one right back and so we did. It was-
pitch dark by that time and as I am not much good at digging,
I asked to be put on sentry duty to see that no "Boche" sneaked
up to those who were working. Four of us went about twenty
yards forward, sat down and listened. Our artillery had set
fire to three houses in the plain. The red smoke was all we
could see, but we could hear our men digging and the Ger-
mans digging. We were about eighty yards from them, sud-
denly things started up again. I don't know who did the
starting or why, but we were caught between two perfectly
fiendish fusillades. Our light artillery fired over our heads,
dangerously close to our pates. The Dutch fired bombs with
trench bombs and their hand grenades. Some kind of a frag-
ment finally hit me on the shoulder so I stopped firing and
took to cover behind a big log. The other sentinels crept up
also and we waited for the storm to slacken. I was not in
any pain so I did not go to the field hospital. By morning
our trench was ready for occupancy. We spent three days and
three nights in it. Once in a while there would be fits of furi-
ous firing, with little or no harm done. Once we were ordered
to put on our sacks. I found I could not stand mine, so re-
treated and came here where I am now. Since I have been
here the Germans attacked twice, and got theirs richly each
time. The first time was on the Kaiser's birthday and they
came up by fours, shouting drunk and got cleaned out. The
98 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
second time they came in hordes, rushed two trenches and
pinched a rapid fire gun, whereupon our commander came
along, drew his revolver and my friends charged with him,
kicked the Dutch out of the trenches, got hold of the machine
gun and made a lot of prisoners. I have been told that the
ground in front of the trenches is gray with German uniforms.
One of our captains wept when he saw the slaughter of Ger-
mans, for young men are young men, even when they are Ger-
mans. These slaughters take place at dusk or at night. Such
is war, Tim ! It does not seem credible that we are in the twen-
tieth century. Things like that happen every day, from
Switzerland to the Atlantic. Neither side advances but both
sides lose heavily, the Germans more because they attack nearly
always in close formation, whereas we scatter and run up in-
dividually. I am hoping to be off duty through February. War
may be a stimulating occupation, but these hours when there is
no good reason why any one second should not be your last
are pretty trying, though it is astonishing how rapidly one
gets used to danger, and takes it as a matter of course.
From the Diary.
After I was wounded I remained in the hole perhaps ten
minutes. My shoulder did not hurt, though I knew it was
bleeding. As soon as the firing died out, I crawled out and
went back to the section, told V that I wanted to find a
nurse and I started for the road. I had not gone five minutes
when I ran into an officer the commandant who asked where
under the sun I was going. I told him I was slightly hurt and
wanted my wound dressed. He told me that all medical at-
tendance was way back, where we had slept in the woods the
first night and that if I was only slightly hurt the best thing
for me to do was to get back to my section. A man with his
foot shot through was wailing by the roadside. The officer'!
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 99
attitude piqued me. Rather than argue or beg I turned back
rather angry. I took the wrong road and stumbled on the
adjutant who was dozing away in a log-house. He made me
come in and sit down. Later Coutil came in. He had a slight
wound in the face, from an explosive rifle ball. The Germans
certainly use two kinds of shot. Some whiz and hiss as they go
by, just as ours do. Others are heard only as they hit some-
thing near one, when an unmistakable explosion takes place.
One such (dum dum?) exploded right over my head, in day
time, cutting a twig at the same instant. And yet, Captain
Beaugier says that bullets hitting the trunk of a tree make ex-
actly the noise of a small shell exploding and that the explosive
bullet is a myth. I spent wretched hours in that hovel waiting
for daybreak. I could not lie down. I sat hunched up. When
I went back to the section the trench was well under way.
There were no rocks at all, soft red earth, and in a few hours
more we had a good trench in which one could stand while fir-
ing. That must have been the morning of the 24th of Jan-
uary.
We spent the whole day seated. There was little artillery
fire. They could not fire any marmites at us without endan-
gering their own trench, for the two trenches were less than
one hundred yards apart. Rifle shots were frequent. We
were resting, after a fashion.
The next day was dull except in the afternoon when the
Germans got a gun way to the left which sent a few marmites
back of us and pretty near pebbles and "flies" falling near us.
Then the rumor started again that we were to attack. We
were in worse shape than ever and that piece of news was re-
ceived mournfully. Then we were told for a fact it was the
fourth company which was to attack and that we were to re-
main in our ditch ready to back it up. At about quarter of
four, we heard a rush back of us and a section came to us on the
100 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
run, they jumped into the ditch and sat with us. Later we got
out and lay flat on the ground to give plenty of room to the new
comers who were to attack. A little while before their arrival
D had returned with orders to send a man forward in our
wires, with a wirecutter and a shield. He was to cut three
paths in the tangle for the attacking party to pass out towards
the Germans. Lots were drawn between the ninth and tenth
squad. The ninth drew the short end. B was appointed. He
did not hesitate a second. Quickly, without a word he lifted
the heavy shield over the embankment, threw the cutters over
then jumped into the danger zone, setting to work immediately.
For this he was proposed for a corporalship the next day.
This attack seemed inane to all, as the trenches lost were
badly placed, not connecting with the others, whereas the one
we had constructed only ninety meters back abutted exactly
with the left and right lines of defense. I understand that the
commandant and captain attacked under protest being com-
pelled to do so against their judgment by the colonel. About
four the signal was given for the attack. With fixed bayonets,
without the sack they jumped over the embankment shouting.
It was a fine sight. Those men knew for a fact that only a few
would ever come back. The majority never hesitated a mo-
ment to rush forward. One or two did not start at all, re-
mained among us. I could see one standing in front. He had
an axe and was cutting wire. He stood fearless in full view
of the enemy.
The firing became intense. The alpine batteries had show-
ered us with shells, then our machine guns had swept the
woods. The rifle fire was intense from then on. Some time
after dark the wounded began to come in. Laurent jumped
over to get a man whose arm was broken. A corporal with his
leg broken was also lifted over. They told us that the attack
had failed. Only about twenty reached the trench. A few
Letters from a CliasMitr' ft Pied ' 101
jumped in. All were shot through the head sooner or later
and at very close range. Some claimed to have heard the Ger-
mans shout later in the night "Chasseurs kaput bravement."
Some eighty men perished in this affair. Useless sacrifice, but as
fine a display of gallantry as one might hope to see under any
flag. When they dashed over the embankment, I could not hold
back my tears. They were so cool, so determined and yet they
knew they could not succeed no fanaticism, they were obeying
orders that bade them look Death right in the face. "Theirs
not to reason why."
The man with a wound in the arm moaned a good deal ask-
ing why the bearers did not come, etc., etc. Suddenly he dis-
covered that one of our section was from his home town. He
forgot his troubles, became less dramatic and finally gathered
courage to get out under own steam and power.
The corporal much more badly hurt, said little but that in a
firm voice and to the point. Bourrinet arranged a shelter with
a tent flap. One of his section who is now in this room with
me, at Weiler infirmary, comforted him. He himself had just
escaped death. I can still hear him say to the corporal "Wait,
little one, we are going little one," as tenderly as a mother.
He had carried the corporal from the wires to the ditch ; he
was a farmer, most gentle, a ladies' man in his rural way.
Finally they carried away the corporal, no easy matter, for
the Germans were sending an occasional "marmite" on the
road leading to the relief station. The rest of the night was
uneventful as also the following day. It thawed and we lived
in liquid mud. I went as sentry for six hours at night, in the
machine gun shelter. I stood behind a shield. I fell asleep over
and over again for a second at a time being awakened by the
knocking of my knees against the wall as I collapsed. I was
relieved at midnight, dug a nice long sloping seat in the back
of the trench, threw my afghan over my head and slept until
102 Letters fYtim a Chasseur a Pied
daybreak, not bothering to look out when spasmodic outbreaks
of wild firing took place. By morning I decided to have the
wound in my shoulder examined. I started up and reached the
field-hospital without trouble. I found Meunier who dressed
my wound and assured me that I was amply entitled to rest at
Weiler's infirmary. He gave me some hot coffee, emptied my
cartridge boxes and gave me a pass.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 103
Bussang, France, February 10, 1915.
I am in France again. Have a job as interpreter
with the British ambulance which does the Alsace-France
service. It came about by my being hit very slightly in
the shoulder January 23d. On my way towards the infirmary,
I ran into our English friends and they went to the head
surgeon and asked that I be retained! So I have a sinecure
for three weeks, probably, and will get a vacation after that.
Shall spend a week with my brother. Talk about luck! Ye
gods. Will send details soon. With enthusiasm. Will send
address later don't know it yet.
104 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Bussang, Vosges, February 11, 1915.
To B :
This is a great world, but particularly so in war
time. I am in this confounded town with nothing to do
and no way of receiving mail because I am in hopes of getting
out one of these days and it would not pay to have letters fol-
low me. My mail is mixed up enough as it is.
We had great excitement at the infirmary to-day, as Poin-
care, the President of the Republic, came to visit the plant.
Such sweepings, derangings and arrangings of cots, blacking of
shoes, etc., one never had seen in the Vosges before. He came
with the president of the cabinet and a handful of generals,
took a circular look and beat it, to the relief of all. I have
been told that he was going as far as Thann. If I had known
that, I would have told him to watch out as it is a bad place
for presidents just now. There is a lot of shooting in that di-
rection as I know from experience.
The snow is rapidly disappearing from the hills and there
is none at all in the plains. It is fortunate enough for the
suffering of the soldiers keeping mountain passes has been
horrible. It would break your heart to see in the infirmaries
a regular line-up of poor fellows walking on all fours. They
put their knees in shoes and drag themselves along. They are
in such pain that they can't sleep for days and days their
poor feet hurt so. I was in luck to get my cut at the time I*
did. It probably saved me from having frozen feet like the
rest of them.
My poor battalion had a heroic time of it after my depar-
ture. Decimated as they were, they repulsed three attacks
and made a lot of prisoners. Twice the Germans pinched our
machine guns and twice my people charged with fixed bayonets
and got the guns back again together with a lot of German
officers and men. For a decadent race, the French are doing
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 105
well, but good Heavens, what a futile and a criminal thing
war is. No one who has not see it can realize how wicked it is.
Only an ass or a bandit can talk about the necessity or the
beauty of war.
I had a talk with an Alpine soldier this morning who is
here with frozen toes. He had some great yarns to tell about
German tricks. One day his company saw five German sol-
diers standing on the battlement of the trenches in full view!
They started shouting that they were tired of the war and
that they wanted to surrender, that the Alpine had better come
right on and get them Kamarade, Franzose, etc. My Alpine
friends suspected treachery and answered nothing; but as the
Germans kept shouting and gesticulating for them to come
out, they fired on the men who tumbled back into their trench ;
then all became clear, for right back of the gesticulating rascals
was a machine gun and if the Alpines had come out of their
hiding place not one would have come back to tell the tale. An-
other time the Dutch tried to reinforce a company by having
the reinforcement disguised as stretcher and Red Cross men.
They are pretty brave in their knavery. They came once be-
fore our trenches at night and shouted (two of them) "En
avant! a la bai'onnette!" hoping to make us come out at the
moment they had chosen, but their accent gave them away and
they were killed for their pains. No Frenchman is going to
charge when he hears "pai'onnette."
I am beginning to believe that this war can not end by the
force of arms. The two sides are too evenly matched, or
rather, with this war in trenches, he who attacks is lost. One
man back of any kind of an earth work is good for ten or'
twenty men coming at him.
Translated from the Diary
One day great stir at the temporary hospital, as there were
106 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
rumors of a visit from President Poincare on an inspection tour.
Much sweeping and dusting. Sheets for the cots put in an ap-
pearance only as there were not enough to go around, we
each took one, folded it in two and let it go at that. The sur-
geon in charge, a very nervous, fidgety white-haired man, dashed
in and out like a little rat to see about the sheets, then about
the sweeping, then about the attitude we were to strike when
his Nibbs would come in, then he came in to tell us to take off
our caps after discussion Should soldiers ever be bareheaded ?
A sergeant who remembered his "theory" ruled that soldiers
without arms, could be bareheaded and not lose their dignity.
Poincare accompanied by Millerand and staff came in. The
President had a curious costume intended to strike exactly half
way between the "bourgeois" and the military. Fatigue cap
of seal or other fur, putties, the rest quite "bourgeois." He
looked grumpy and said nothing at all but looked all around.
Millerand looked a good deal like a very solid business man,
Our surgeon scarcely could keep from jumping out of his skin
he stood like a hundred yard dash runner hardly touched the
floor at all.
That surgeon was a fine man. He took the best care of us.
He managed to get me out of Bussang quietly, putting me on
the next list, feeling pretty sure that the pudding head of a
head physician had completely forgotten having named me in-
terpreter in chief. I went to our surgeon when I saw that a
new batch of wounded were to be sent off and asked him in the
name of God to put me on the list and he answered in his ner-
vous way, in a whisper "But, it is done, it is done." I thanked
him heartily and beat it exulting. A new major came to take
charge of the hospital at the time of our departure an ass
that one, a perfect specimen of the type. Made us form in
line outside the buildings, under a pelting rain, kept us there
for half an hour and talked and acted like a cheap sergeant.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 107
We were all in the train by 2 P. M., and left the station
about four.
We passed through Tillot and Cornimont to Gray, the last
station of the army zone. Great anxiety, as all those who were
told to leave the train, to Gray included, were to return to the
front directly while those who went out of the zone must first
go to the "depot" and what was even more desirable had a right
to a seven days' furlough.
It was only late in the day that we found we were going
to Lyons and it was only at Lyons that we were informed that
our train would proceed by the right bank of the Rhone to
Anonay.
There was nothing lugubrious about this train of wounded,
but on the contrary it was an almost joyful return, a return
after months of privations, to happy life, a life of more than
plenty, a life in which we were sure to have always something
to eat and good things, too, where we could always keep warm,
sleep in a warm place, sleep as long as we pleased wash our-
selves and bathe it was a journey which was bringing us back
to normal life a journey which was taking us directly to a
place where we would be able to have all the things of which
we had been deprived for months.
While crossing the "departement" of Haute-Saone, after leav-
ing the rather austere scenery of the Vosges which was too
much like Alsace to be entirely reassuring, a feeling of infinite
peace came over me. At early dawn after wiping off the mist
on the car window, I was able to see well cultivated fields and
lines of slender trees by peaceful streams, comfortable looking
houses and pretty cottages. Everywhere peace profound, an air
of prosperity, the whole country appearing as a beautiful gar-
den, small towns which in earlier days might have appeared
lifeless to me now seemed to have a most restful atmosphere
everywhere security and order. What a contrast with Alsace
108 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
\
and with its roads constantly crowded with lines of heavy
wagons, where cavalry and infantry men cover miles and miles
in order to find the most elementary necessaries of life and re-
turn driving before them wheelbarrows or pushing baby car-
riages full of packages. The sad roads of Alsace with their
endless trains of refugees driven from Thann or from Gold-
bach poor old men, poor old women, wretched bundles of
clothes piled up on shaky carts here and there a stubborn cow
who does not want to walk any further, a calf which lies down
and refuses to get up again, pigs carried in bags, and always on
the faces of the people the same expression of lassitude, discour-
agement; and when you spoke to them they answered with the
whining accent of the land : Yes, the Germans are bombard-
ing, we had to go for the tauben which flew over the villages
dropped bombs. And even greater was the contrast with the
Vosges and their destroyed cities, Raon-1'Etape, for instance,
and the surrounding country with its burnt down farm houses.
The scenery, in the "departement" of Haute-Saone and later
in Bresse, so sweetly peaceful, was to the aching heart as a heal-
ing balm, and the rather ignoble life of the front in general and
specially in the trenches, seemed now to assume the highest dig-
nity, for it was thanks to our life in the mud that the rest of
France was sound.
From the Fourteenth of February to the Seventeenth of May,
at the Hospital in Givors.
The surgeon in chief was Dr. Cornillon who was at one time
surgeon for the Boleo Mining Co., in Lower California. A
splendid man, an excellent surgeon, a man full of tact and
kindliness. After a time his wife joined him. She is the daugh-
ter of a Franco-Mexican magnate of great wealth. The lady
very simple and kindly timid, homesick for the Mexican
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 109
plateau. Cornillon was just before the war surgeon of the
French hospital in Mexico City.
The assistant physician was Dr. Charmeau from Thonon and
Lyons efficient and irresistibly funny in his irreverence his
conversation one streak of slang of the most amazing character
and complexity. With all that very keen and watchful his
boyishness somewhat of a mask.
All the sisters were of St. Vincent de Paul order very good
nurses, but sorrowing because of lack of work. They dreamed
only of possibility of complete self-sacrifice to men chopped all
to pieces. The "petits blesses" did not fulfill their require-
ments. I told them that their attitude was sinful, but that next
time I should try to return to the hospital in a more creditable
shape, surgically speaking. I argued that they yearned for illicit
pleasures they expressed admiration for my ability as a
theologian.
One sister took her task so much to heart that she was a
perfect pest spending all her time in straightening out bed
spreads and picking up cigarette tops known as the
^'adjupette."
Ladies from the town came to help the sisters. One was
particularly kind Madame Piguet, every time she went to
Lyons, she brought back newspapers for me. The London
Times and the New York Herald. The Daily Telegraph, etc.
Before my arrival at Givors a negro from Senegal was in
treatment arm badly torn by bullets. When he left the hos-
pital he was given a convalescence leave of two months. The
poor fellow did not know where to go had no alternative
it was the "depot de convalescents" for him, a poor place at
best under strict military rule and with beans and "boeuf
nature" as fare. Mme. Piguet took him into her house and he
spent all his vacation in Givors. I saw him at Mme. Piguet's
table. He acted like a very good boy "a table jusqu'au men-
110 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
ton" never took up spoon or fork until everybody else had
done so, thus averting many social errors. Brahim was very
polite and unobtrusive, very different from a Kabyle soldier
Sidi, as they are all called who blew into the hospital in a spec-
tacular fashion, arms, back and abdomen wounded. First
conversation to the assembled multitude, "I brave, I killed many
Boches. I eaten Boches's ears when still hot, very good with
sugar." The chap very rapidly grew unpopular he bragged
and boasted "I brave" in the operation room. He never said
a word when his wounds were dressed, but made fun of those
who could not help but groan with pain. He lost caste when
he made amorous remarks to the sisters and Red Cross nurses,
but the climax was when he tried slyly to pat Mrs. Cornillon's
cheek. Charmeau said to him, "Look out, Sidi, she is the wife
of the great boss" "Je m'en fous," said Sidi. He was finally
taken to a hospital for Africans. Cornillon took him there in a
car. Sidi felt injured, did not want to go. Cornillon always
kindly tried to make him forget his grievances by making him
admire the scenery, but Sidi would not be fooled. His last
words were "No comrades here! No comrades here."
At the hospital we had twice calls from prominent ecclesiastics
once an old priest, another time the Cardinal of Lyons. Each
time, to avoid embarrassing situations, the abbe and Lady Su-
perior warned the gentlemen in question of the presence of a
Protestant in the ward. In the room with me was Masson, a
Parisian lawyer, who naturally was more impressive looking
than I, and the distinguished visitors, glancing around the
room, guessed him to be the heretical professor and went to
him with outstretched hands and words of flattering concilia-
tion. Tableau as Masson was a fervent Roman Catholic.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 111
Translated
Givors.
To A :
After a few days, I gave up my job as an in-
terpreter for the English ambulance men at Bussang, because
I thought it lacked the official stamp. The commandant who
gave it to me had been sent somewhere else and I was afraid
that after my wound was healed his successor might send me
back to the front without giving me a few days' leave of ab-
sence. That is why, when I had a chance, I asked to be taken
farther back into France. I have had a wonderful trip on a
sanitary train. We were admirably well treated all through.
This service is very well organized. Bouillon, hot and cold
meats, coffee, tea, milk, cigarettes, bread, cheese, chocolate, reg-
ular meals and pique-nique, all along the road or rather at every
station. We did not know whither we were bound. After
having passed through Epinal and Gray, we felt more at ease,
for we knew that now we were far beyond the fighting zone
and in the region of leaves of absence, with the accompanying
prospect of a return to the company via the depot. I feel sure
now that I shall be able to visit our brother and that I caa
soon after call at the Dulacs on returning to Besan^on.
We reached Lyons yesterday at about 3 o'clock, twenty-four
hours after leaving Bussang. I came near being sent to a hos-
pital in Lyons, but as I wished to be as near our brother as pos-
sible, I quickly climbed back into the train and I succeeded in
protracting my trip as far as the town of Givors, Rhone. We
are twenty kilometers south of Lyons and on the right bank of
the river Rhone. From here it must take about four hours to
reach Valence on the train. They say the service is good.
112 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Therefore I may expect to see our brother within a short time.
I should not be surprised if on returning to my battalion I
should find that it has been relieved from first line trenches
where it has been on duty for two full months. It hasi suf-
fered too much to be in any condition to do any hard fighting.
The first company, for instance, has lost all its officers with the
exception of the captain, a second lieutenant and a sergeant.
Therefore it is barely possible I may only return to Alsace when
you and I some fine day will take a reconoitering trip over my
battlefields. Life indeed is a strange adventure. Here am I
close to a city with which so many family recollections are
connected.
This hospital is fine. It used to be an asylum for old people
and it has been turned into a hospital because of the present
emergency. The head surgeon came from Mexico where he
was in charge of the French hospital. I wonder if our brother
knows him. Anyhow he is a very capable physician. He knows
the United States and asked me if I had met So and so, naming
doctors in New York and San Francisco.
Au revoir.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 113
Givors, Rhone, February 18, 1915.
To M :
I have been remorseful these many days at not
having written to you sooner. My recent travels are
my excuse. Your last letter was particularly a joy. What
do you know about pigs and the manufacturing of the various
kinds of "delicatessen" ? You are a versatile young woman and
the South may well bow before the North. Could V go
to Marshfield and make brown bread that would be counten-
anced by the Baker boys? I have great doubts. I have been
in this hospital three days. Yesterday there should have been
a letter from Valence for me. There was not any at 9 A. M.
and I was peevish, but at 9.15 I happened to look up from the
table at which I was writing and in the door stood my brother
in the flesh. That was much better than a letter. I had told
him with solemnity in all my letters that my cut was nothing
at all and that my precious health had never been better. He
had not believed me and had taken a night trip to this place
fully expecting to find me in skillfully sewed up fragments.
We went out together right away, had an immense smoke and
talk, then a dinner during which I amazed him by the quality
of my appetite. He will be here again Sunday. By the first of
March I expect to be kicked out of here, but as a compensa-
tion I shall get an eight-day furlough which I shall spend at
Valence naturally. The chances are that when I return to
my battalion it will not be as near the front as it has been
since the middle of December for the simple reason that it is
practically without officers and that the men who have not
had the good fortune of being slightly hurt, or of getting
bronchitis or frozen feet are pretty nearly exhausted after
114 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
weeks and weeks of squatting in wet trenches under artillery
fire of the most damnable intensity at times, and constantly
on the lookout for attacks from the Rhine valley. I only had
nine days of it, this last session, and felt that it was quite
enough. My comrades came down only after three full weeks
of this kind of life and I believe that after a few days' rest near
St.-Amarin they went up again. Those who claim that the
French are an impatient race without endurance don't know
what they are talking about.
The trip back to peaceful parts was very interesting. Eng-
lish ambulances took us out of Alsace back to the French bor-
der at Bussang. Had quite a talk with the Chilly Boy who
drove my car and who was full of solicitude for his hosts.
At Bussang we saw Poincare and Millerand who happened
to be on a glad hand and inspection tour, but the really inter-
esting part of the trip was from there to Lyons. We were
about twenty carloads of "wounded" of various degrees of re-
spectability. Some like myself cheerful to see the people who
watched the train go by. They were nearly all women and
old men. Some of the women were crying. At the stations,
specially in the Vosges, they would run up to the cars and ask
breathlessly "Do you know So and so who is at the Fifth, or the
Fifteenth or the Twenty-eighth?" Sometimes we knew the
man and could give good news. It's certainly the women and
the middle-aged and old men who have to bear the greate*
suffering these days.
Now I am living on the fat of the land, for the land, in spite
of everything, is still fat. As far as food and fuel go, you
could never tell that the country was at war.
Soeur Jeanne, Monsieur 1'Abbe, Monsieur 1'Econome, min-
ister to my needs physical needs only, as I have already told
them that being a Protestant, I could not very well be ex-
pected to go to mass. We are taken care of admirably. The
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 115
surgeon in charge of the hospital is a wonderful man in every
way.
Give your husband my most cordial greetings and keep up a
lively anti-German agitation in the whole of Virginia.
116 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Translated
Givors, March 1, 1915.
To A :
In one of your letters you spoke of the fellows
who entered the church so stealthily at Goldbach. Just
fancy, the reverend priest had to be shot. This holy man had
a small telephone in the church hidden under a flagstone.
Whenever something interesting came up, he hastened to im-
part the news to the German artillerymen, and for one thing
he told them where our batteries were laid in Goldbach. I
am not romancing after the fashion of Gaboriau. This man
was caught in the act, red-handed. He was driven to the wall
and shot. It was discovered later that he was a German offi-
cer of the reserve and that he had the right to wear the uni-
form, when he chose, and that the German uniform and the
priestly garb were equally becoming to him.
I also wish to set you right in connection with washing fa-
cilities in the trenches. I wish you could have seen your own
brother after he had been eleven days in the trenches with-
out even having had a chance to use a towel once! We had
spent three days without having had anything to drink, wash-
ing was simply out of the question. When we are lucky enough
to use snow for that purpose, we deem ourselves fortunate.
War is unclean.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 117
Translated
Givors, March 8, 1915.
To A :
Your two last letters reached me yesterday. Of
course I enjoyed them very much, and the clippings, too.
This poor Kuno Francke makes the most of his subject ; the first
part of his article is inspired by the circumstances; the second
is quite strong. I feel sincerely sorry for the honest Boches
and I dare say there are many of them scattered among the
crowd of rascals and the numberless hosts of visionary brutes.
Our Easthampton friend sent me the letter written by one
of the Williams College instructors. He was not in the Vosges
but in the Argonne forest and it is very possible that he
may have had trouble in rinding an opportunity for washing
himself. Our positions on the Sudel and on Hartmannweilers-
kopf are on the very crests. The brooks spring far below. We
cannot leave our positions for the sake of washing our faces.
But it is unusual that by hook or by crook he who wishes to
wash cannot have a chance every second, third or fourth day.
And yet there are some specially trying times when it is almost
impossible to be relieved from duty, therefore everything is
possible. Sometimes we are so tossed about and ill-treated to
*uch an extent by unforeseen contingencies which bring to us in
quick succession hunger, thirst, sleepiness, dirt, prolongations of
duty at times when we should be relieved, attacks at times when
we would have a right to snatch a few moments of sleep that
neither Lazarillo de Tormes nor Gil Bias ever experienced any-
thing like it. The time comes when one does not count on
anything except on the present moment. The nearest future
seems to be full of uncertainty. We live from one minute to
118
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
the next, all our interest centers on the present fleeting instant.
On Christmas day I was not at Thann but at Goldbach, the
last village before one reaches the neck of Sudel. I gave as
few geographical indications as I could so as not to have my
letters suppressed. I believe the censor is not very strict when
over-sea correspondence is concerned, for all my letters from the
front seemed to have reached you.
Now, of course, I am indulging in a life of utter peacefulness.
In the morning soup and clear coffee. Between 8 and 9 a walk
and a smoke in the yard, from 10 to 12 reading of newspapers
and books sent by our cousin, then letter writing. From 1 to 4
a walk in the environs of Givors to one of the high-perched vil-
lages from which one sees in the distances the Cevennes moun-
tains and a beautiful extent of plain on the banks of the river up
and down the Rhone valley. We spend half an hour in the
best village inn and we drink a cup of coffee or a glass of light
wine. The peasants ask us for no end of war stories and most
of the time the innkeepers refuse to take any money from us
and when we go they slip into our pockets: cigarettes, cookies,
etc. After we return to Givors, reading and letter writing
till supper time. This is how the weeks glide away.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 119
Givors, March 10th, 1915.
You will see by the enclosed picture that I am growing
fat, a calamity which I cannot combat at present. There is
no telling when I shall be able to combat it, as my stay at
Givors is prolonging itself scandalously. The last time I was
dressed (two days ago) I took a good look at my "wound"
with the aid of a looking-glass and saw that the muscle had
grown back into perfect shape, but there was not the slight-
est appearance of skin on it. I judge from this that I shall
be here until the last part of March, so that it is perfectly
possible that my battalion will be without my service as late
as May 1st. What that body will do without me is difficult
to say. Yet it is very true that it got on nicely before my
arrival. My corporal wrote me a fine letter; my sergeant
sent me a postal. That last surprised me a great deal, because
circumstances compelled me, the night before I left the front,
and between the hours of 1 and 2 A. M., to give that gentle-
man a great call-down and he was so peeved that he had to
make a visible effort to extend to me his right when I took
ny departure some hours later.
My friends have gone up to Steinbach again, after a two
weeks' rest at Saint- Amarin. They are in for it this trip for
n thirty days' stay. As we are having a cold snap and as the
snowfall in the Vosges has been very heavy, they will have a
devil of a time, si j'ose mexprimer ainsi.
It makes me feel cheap to be here by a radiator while they
are "getting thin" out in the elements. And yet it would be
a lie to say that I am filled with a fanatical desire to return
to Steinbach or even Weiler, where the infirmary was. Tauben
flew over that town every day and dropped bombs between
10 and 11 A. M. You would have thought that mothers
would have locked up their children in the cellars, but nothing
120 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
of the kind. Boys and girls were all over the place, faces
turned skyward, fingers pointed eagerly towards the machine.
The women, who were forever washing clothes in the river,
never gave up this occupation until after a bomb had exploded
somewhere nearby. Givors is on the railroad. We watch the
trains go by. Many of them are made up exclusively of
reservoir cars. They come full from the South and come
empty from the front, all of which tends to prove the old
saying that the French are fond of light wine. Will you
believe that in a German school geography I read the exact
statement which your father used to quote the French are
fond of dancing and light wine!
On the main line, trains go by headed for Marseilles, with
all kinds of military supplies. A whole division of colonial
infantry has already left for Turkey. Some heavy artillery
and one regiment also left Lyons for those parts. Something
is going to happen to the valorous Turk.
You delighted my brother with your plan of a United States
of Europe. He has long cherished that idea. So have I. Some
such arrangement would be a partial compensation for this
European slaughter. Some great good is bound to come out
of it, because there is no doubt that the man in the street
and the woman, his better half, are thinking now as they
never thought before, and if anything can make people really
think, make the masses think, who as a rule prefer to be led,
why good is bound to result.
Ferdinand has sent me a lot of books. Two more just
came from Valence. My mail comes very well. What more
to desire, I say? Every afternoon we go upon the hill and
have a cafe noir or a glass of wine at some inn.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 121
Givors, March, 1915.
Here at Givors, nothing new. Life goes on with perfect
regularity. I read and write in the morning, range the hills
in the afternoon and talk it over after supper. Also I eat
faithfully three times a day.
It makes me blush with shame when I get letters from
those who still think I am in those confounded trenches. I
don't believe I'll see them again before the middle of April
or even the first of May. My shoulder does not bother me
at all, but it simply has to be dressed. It is still raw and
skinless in part.
The war seems to be as beastly as ever, though we seem
to push ahead a little in Champagne. It is still too early
for a definite forward movement with a lot of troops concen-
trated at one spot. Good many regiments are being shipped
to Turkey in view of operations about Constantinople. The
front is thus still expanding. The feeling of the people about
here is that it is getting pretty wearisome, but that we are
bound to win in the end.
I was glad to find a new note in the newspapers to-day,
to the effect that it was silly for us to talk so much about
the good intentions of our neutral neighbors, and about the
bright day when they would join their forces to ours, etc., etc.,
and that we would do very much better in minding our own
affairs, counting on no one but ourselves. That's the right
attitude. Those politicians who keep looking for more allies
make me tired.
This pen, as you see, is infernal. I can't go on with it
122 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
it scratches and spits like an angry cat, giving a very false
idea of my character.
Your aunt had a great scheme. To wit, that all French
teachers return to the United States to combat the German-
American propaganda. I was to be one of the first ones to
be sent back. A luminous idea, indeed, but before anyone
had time to impart it to the war secretary, I learned that
G was doing precisely the thing and that the Paris
Chamber of Commerce, together with the most prominent
literary, political and business men of France were helping
him out in his task. Now isn't that mean ?
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 123
Givors, March 16th, 1915.
Nothing new here. I may clear out of the hospital at the
end of the month; my cut is getting very small and has
stopped kicking up any row. I feel strong and nimble. Down
with the Germans! We are sending more troops to Turkey.
By the way, young lady, whom do you take me for? I am
not a biffin or a pitou or a pousse-caillou. I am a chasseur.
In other words I hold in horror and abominate red trousers,
and consider it one of the fine things in life to say hard and 1
haughty things about the slow moving head of line infantry.
My trousers are of a very dark blue with a quarter or eighth
inch stripe of canary yellow, by gum, running on the seam
to the legging. I am a chasse-bi, alias a vitrier or a diable
bleu no reference to delirium tremens.
These last days I have been growing intellectual. I read
and give English lessons to the assistant surgeon, a kid twenty-
one or twenty-two, who has difficulty with the "th" and the
rapid locating of the tonic accent in "geography" and "institute."
He wants to know why, just like an ordinary Stanford student.
The war drags as usual. There is no way of telling about
the end. I may write to Stanford to tell them to elect a man,
since I can give them no assurance of returning in time to take
up work in September. If war should stop, say in November,
I would be without a job and should have to ask your cousin
to let me currycomb Reggie and do odd jobs around and about
the formal garden. Break the news to her gently.
Still I have the firm hope that something decisive will be
done during April and May. We have plenty of fresh troops;
we have more heavy guns now than the Dutch; we still have
124 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
a clear conscience and, figuratively speaking, clean hands. Will
we keep that purity if we ever get into Germany? I fondly
hope so, but some of the men will be pretty hard to hold;
those, who are many, who come from the northern depart-
ments, and whose families were slaughtered last August.
So far I have seen no atrocities or traces of atrocities com-
mitted by our men. One chap in our battalion did commit
an outrage. When we took Steinbach, the Dutch prisoners
were lined up against a house. I have been told that one of
our men, a farmer about thirty-eight years old, stepped in
front of the line and as he went snapped the pointed helmets
qff the heads of the Dutch so as to see their faces better. He
would throw the helmet on the ground dramatically, and say,
looking at his victims, *"Bon Dieu! qu'ils sont laids, Bon
Dieu! qu'ils sont laids," and so on down the line. Let us
pray that the Wolff Agency may never hear of this.
* Good gracious, how homely they are !
Letters fro?n a Chasseur a Pied 125
Givors, Rhone, March 17th, 1915.
To Miss H :
Your first letter came in the trenches, the second when I
was still in the infirmary in a town visited daily by bomb-drop-
ping aeroplanes and subjected once in a while to long distance
shelling. The other two were given me at the hospital itself,
in the heart of France, thank Heaven ! Some of the news
certainly startled me. What! O in the ministry?
That's the best yet. However, he did well not to stay in
Germany. If France had had as poor a cause to fight for
as our across-the-Rhine friends, I would not have come back.
Yes, I could without difficulty, after reading your letter,
see the Westhampton group of houses, with the steep hill in
the back, the church on the right. I know those old roads
pretty well. I think I could find my way from the top of
Turkey Hill to the Montague's at night and in a blizzard with-
out difficulty. You must know at least as well as we do
that nothing in particular is happening on the front. Mean
little fights for the reconquering of a few hundred yards of
territory, good many men killed on both sides and not much
change in the situation. Troops are piling into northbound
trains all the time. There must be a tremendous concentra-
tion of forces somewhere, but where no one knows, of course.
New regiments are being formed to be sent to Turkey. Men
coming out of the hospitals are often put into such bodies.
It would be a joke if I winded up matters by going to Con-
stantinople. My cut is healing rapidly now and I dare say
that I'll be out of here by April 3d, so that by April 8th,
after a week off with my brother, I ought to be back at the
Depot. I may leave for the front a month later or the day
126 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
after my arrival at Besangon, no one can tell. Life will begin
again to be delightfully indefinite.
I was interested to learn that the fame of the chasseurs
alpins had travelled across the ocean. I am a chasseur a pied
for the present, but the alpins are our brothers and we are
united by our common scorn of the regular line infantry.
There is no worse insult in the battalion than to say you
walk or shoot like a pitou, which is slang for infantry of the
regular brand. The alpine troops are a fine body of men,
all picked from the mountainous parts of France. Instead
of remaining in barracks during peace time, they spend nearly
six months of the year camping and marching in the Alps.
They have a fine gun; cannon I mean. It's very small,
sixty-five mill. It can be taken to pieces in a jiffy and three
men can carry the parts. It shoots six miles or seven. The
shell does a lot of damage. When the gun is in battery in the
snow or in the woods no aero can see it. If its location is
ever found out, the artillery-men just take it to pieces; that is,
for a mile or two and start shooting again. It can shoot
with startling rapidity, because when once trained it stays put no
matter how often it is fired. Fortunately the Germans have
nothing like it. For mountain artillery, they had to borrow
guns from Austria and they were not much good either.
Some of the alpins are trained "skiers." These last months
they would go about in white overalls and jumpers so that
they could not be distinguished even when in close formation.
Alsace the little bit we have of it is held entirely by alpine
troops and by chasseurs a pied.
With your interest in animals, you would have been pleased
to see our mules. All food and drink and ammunition had to
come over the mountains on mule back. It takes about eighty
mules to keep a regiment fed and supplied with cartridges.
It's a great sight to see those everlasting lines of mules along
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 127
the mountain trails. They go over anything and at any time
of day or night. The convoys are usually started so as to
reach the danger zone between sunset and sunrise. The
business of the mule driver is no sinecure. A good many get
killed with their mules because the Germans know where the
trails are and they drop an occasional shell here and there at
any time of day or night. It's all guess work, of course, but
some shells are bound to hit some one some time. On the
return trip the mules are made to carry the wounded who can't
walk. There are two ways of getting the poor fellows over
the mountain. The first is by means of a kind of saddle
shaped like a chair, or rather there are two such chairs, one
on each side of the mule and the men sit up in them. For
those who can't sit up there are little two-wheel affairs re-
sembling the trucks used in railroad stations to carry trunks,
only these are very light and have rubber-tired wheels like
bicycles. They are known jokingly as "baby carriages." They
can ride over any place good enough for a mule to find a
footing and that's about anywhere on earth. A third and
less formal way to leave the front if you are all in, is to hang
on with one hand to the tail of a mule. They don't object
and never kick when on such duty. I tried it when I came up,
but the mule walked too fast and I had to let go. We are
having splendid weather now, but the first of the month
was very cold. As a result of that "snap" we have just re-
ceived at the hospital ten alpins afflicted with frozen feet.
One of the poor fellows will probably have to lose both feet
and he is only twenty-two years old. The next calamity will
doubtless be epidemics of all kinds and of typhoid in particular.
If this is not the last European war, it will be because all
Europeans are crazy.
128 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Translated from the French.
Givors, March 22d, 1915.
To A :
The countries where war is not waged have no history
and the Rhone valley is extremely peaceful.
I laughed till I cried when I heard of your skirmish with
the German widow; she always worked on my nerves. She
used to bother me to death, wanting me all the time to go to her
house to play bridge. I can't tell you how hard it was to get
rid of her. Therefore, I am delighted that you expressed to
her our views. Sooner or later there is a day of reckoning for
everyone in this world. I cannot yet tell you when war will
be over, but as a large majority of Europeans are living in the
same uncertainty, I do not feel in the least humiliated by my
ignorance.
The Germans are doing their best to spread terror among
Parisians. On the other hand, I have a sad thing to tell you.
There came yesterday to our hospital, straight from the front
a Senagalese sharpshooter, a peculiar looking negro, with pointed
cranium, who began right away with confidences. "I broken
arm, but soon will go back to kill Bodies. I already eaten
seven Boche's ears. Boche's ears very good ; melt in the mouth
like sugar I always carry Boche's ears in my bag." I believe
if we had a few gentlemen of this type on the front we would
Jose forever our moral superiority over our dear neighbors and
invaders. Don't be scared, however, you know my digestive
organs are rather delicate. I shall not disgrace my family
in this way.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 129
Givors, March 23, 1915.
Both yours of March (3-5) came yesterday. At last im-
mensely relieved at the thought that you know that I never
wore red trousers. By the way red trousers are a thing of
the past, not since very long. All uniforms are now an un-
certain kind of light grayish blue which is really very incon-
spicuous. We, the chasseurs, keep our canary yellow "liseret."
Ye gods, what color harmonies.
No, chasseurs are only human and they can't be always on
the run like college girls. Only they average many more
miles a day than line infantry. The "pitous" don't go much
over eighteen miles a day. We are supposed to go as much
as thirty with the whole load. When going through a city
we hit up a sharp, snappy gait which is supposed to be smart
and which has given rise to the saying that we always run.
As soon as we get out on country roads we go more leisurely.
Can't write more having no note paper. This is a middle
of the week note to say that I shall leave here only May 10th
and will not see the Boches before June 1st.
130 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Translated.
Givors.
To Mr. G :
Yesterday I received two letters from you. I was highly
pleased, as usual when so favored, but I must admit that the
list of books I must read in order to escape intellectual starva-
tion made my head swim and my ears buzz.
What you say concerning your own impressions about Alsace
is extremely interesting to me. I cannot tell you how often
I said to myself when I was on the Sudel, getting an occasional
glimpse from behind a fir tree at the lesser chains of the Black
Forest. "It is almost the same view one has from Black
Mountain, when facing Mount Hamilton." And drawing
n more extensive parallel, I felt rather disgusted at the thought
of the untold miseries and of the huge sacrifices in human lives
which were made in order to recover a stretch of Alsatian terri-
tory that could easily be included between Red Wood City and
San Jose! Evidently the gains should not be reckoned in
kilometers, what should be taken into account is the number
of inhabitants and the homes (les feux et les antes). Did you
also notice that the harvested wheatfields, scorched by the
sun take on all the shades of the Stanford "brown hills?"
Yes, indeed, I realize that with the exception of a few
bombardments, I have seen so far nothing but outpost fights.
Steinbach was nothing but a surprise attack well carried out
and poorly supported. In Alsace, it has been for months
guerilla warfare. We had just enough soldiers to hold the
trenches and support our artillery. There were no forces behind
us and often we felt uncomfortable at the thought of what
would happen were our lines to be pierced at such and such
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 131
a place. I do believe that a similar state of things prevails all
along the frontier and yet I am told the depots are overcrowded.
Life in the trenches tires the men out and takes all the vim
out of them; therefore, it is very wise to leave on the front
a thin line of men until the time when thei troops who are
resting will march forward to the final offensive. Even some
regiments belonging to the regular army have not yet been
at the front. My cousin, F. P., who belongs to the Belfort
division has just started for Alsace. I do not think that one
needs fear a return of acute nationalism in France. We shall
have to be modest for victory will have been too long delayed
and the glory will have to be shared with too many allies.
There will be a renewed surge of confidence in the destinies
of our race, but nothing more. The open letters of our in-
tellectuals and the declaration of faith of our grammar school
teachers seem to indicate a state of mind which must be very
much in accordance with your wishes. France, of course, but
humanity and civilization are placed above France, a point of
view which widely differs from that of our neighbors.
The more I think about your trilemma, the less I under-
stand it. Time spent in meditation is not altogether wasted,
even when one does not reach the desired conclusion. It seems
to me I have succeeded in analyzing, in a measure, the feeling
which the reading of your authors* invariably awakens in me.
Your trilemma might be reduced to a question of good or bad
faith. Does freethinking necessarily destroy good faith in
relations existing between men? When he shows his sym-
pathy for the lowly, which is the best side of his nature,
what does Anatole France ask for? Is it not simply that the
boss or the wealthy man be fair in his dealings with the work-
ing man or with the poor ? In his opinion, this need of absolute
*~ Five Masters of French Romance by Albert Leon Guerard,
London: T. Fisher Uunwin.
132 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
confidence is an axiom. Then why does not he admit that
the same fairness is the basis of sexual relations? When he
stands up for the poor, he demands justice, integrity. Should
one mention to him justice and integrity in his relations to
women, his tone changes entirely ; a while ago he was kind and
compassionate; now he becomes ironical, subtle, slippery. It
is because he is weak in this respect. He can only be just when
his physical appetites are not concerned, but as soon as his
sexual selfishness gets the upper hand he becomes a very poor
specimen of human nature. It does not seem to me that this
weakness is necessarily the result of freethinking. Did
Berthelot, Claude Bernard, Pasteur have a lesser amount of
intellectual freedom than Anatole France? Did they for this
reason become fast men in private life and did they officially
preach loose morals?
Anatole France, Bourget and Barres are men of morbid
temperament. In support of their weakness they place all the
resources of a skillful dialectic which used in favor of a good
cause might do much good and people come to think that it is
freedom of thought which has created such a temperament
while as a matter of fact it is their temperament which has
given a twist to their minds. As soon as these fellows speak
of sexual problems, they show an extraordinary weakness
and this very weakness leads them directly to a lack of up-
rightness. You must be just in your dealings with the poor
and lowly. Very well, and what about women? That is
an entirely different question. Never mind the women. Why?
Have you any right to take such a stand? Well, I would
lose too much if I cared. Of course, they have not the
courage to express their thoughts. All they do is to repeat,
"I don't care a rap/' They are no longer willing to be fair-
minded in their reasonings. I always felt that these writers
were in no way the leaders of French thought. From a moral
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 133
viewpoint, they are the wretched descendants, the last heirs
of a long line of fast esthetes, which have for a common
ancestor Chateaubriand, as he appears in the Genie du Chris-
tianisme. These people cannot teach anything to the young
men of modern France. As leaders of the new generation,
they have made a dismal failure. Barres specially, who at one
time had high pretensions in this respect. Young men turned
to other writers like R. Rolland and Brieux, who were not
obliged to display so much art in defense of temperamental
weakness.
Barres disgusts me more than I can tell. His leading
articles in the Echo de Paris are frequently masterpieces of
hypocrisy. I am sending you a letter from an American
(possibly an Irishman) which Barres thought worth his while
to translate and bring before the French public. Now, the
time is really not well chosen to stir up in an underhanded
way religious animosity. Do you really think the Americans
are deeply grieved because the French government severed
relations with Rome!
Yes, the poor Alsatians show great courage in receiving
us as they do. I was told that our hosts, in Steinbach, were
shot when the Germans retook the town. One hears of so
many atrocities that one's heart sinks. Near Chambery there
are seven hundred French women refugees from the invaded
departments; two hundred of them are to become mothers
as a result of German violence last August. What shall we
do with these infant Boches that are coming?
134 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Givors, March 30th, 1915.
Still leading the Lotus Eating Life and waiting for May
(the month, no girl in the case) to come along. If your cousin
could send me Reggie, I would get all the fat off his ribs and
make him look like an English hunter. The country here is
very hilly, an ideal resort for horses afflicted with obesity,
So you have fallen to studying birds. You don't know the
call of the white throated sparrow, alias, the Peabody bird,
because you belong to the seashore tribes and have a very in-
sufficient initiation in mountain and wood lore. You can
know only sophisticated and superficial suburban birds. I
suspect that the red-nosed wood-pecker who is now making such
a social splurge in Auburndale gives informal and formal teas,
hence his sudden rise and popularity.
There must be something wrong with the international
mails these days. No information at all about my war muffler;
also I know that a whole lot of cigarettes that were sent me
by Dr. A , a Brooklyn-Palo Alto friend, have been re-
turned to the sender. I call that a scandal. Please thank your
cousin. If the socks "get across," I shall show them all around,
as a tangible proof of America's friendship for us. Perhaps
I'll be able to wear them on a Sierra trip next Christmas.
I would prefer this to another winter campaign.
Things are as dull gray as usual around here. Nothing
much on the front except the usual slaughters, a few hundred
men in Alsace, a few more in Argonne, and the same farther
west, and about once or twice a week people throw up their
hands in horror when a battleship is lost. Tremendous lost
of life; they don't realize that every time a trench is taken
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 135
or lost, the lives sacrificed are more numerous than in the
sinking of a battleship.
No self-respecting attack is ever pulled through with a loss
inferior to four hundred or five hundred. The alpins, who
were on our left, the first time they attacked the
Hartmannweiler-Kopf lost two thousand men in about an hour.
The papers didn't even bother to mention it. What must the
English have lost at Neuve-Chapelle, if they admitted that
530 officers were killed or wounded.
To my mind, this war is the deathblow to armies and to
settlements of international questions by force. It's the bank-
ruptcy of arms, and may they go out of business once for all.
I don't believe this war will end by great victories for either
side. Starvation of civilians and lack of funds and general
disgust at the whole business will bring peace.
Hospital life is pretty dull, so please don't give up writing.
This is the religious-military-hospital. . . . One sister has
tried to convert me and to make we wear a kind of medal with
a flaming heart on it. I was so very polite that she saw that she
had fallen on a street-lamp-gas-jet from the neo-French
tomber sur un bee de gaz meaning to get in wrong. She is a
fine lady, however; takes a motherly interest in all the badly
wounded who come in, but being a nun, she has religious aims,
which is natural enough. She has a good sense of humor, so
that even if I stay here four more weeks, we may not come
to blows. Still you will sympathize with me in my homesick
feeling for lay American hospitals.
This is all the news that's fit to write about, I believe, so
I will say good-bye.
Remember me to your families. Tell your Mississippi
brother to go back to California right away, before he gets
malaria in his swamps. The fish is not worth the ague.
136 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Givors, March 31st, 1915.
To A :
The St. Vincent de Paul sisters are nursing us. One of
them has made a feeble attempt to convert me. She asked me
if I believed in God. I almost fell backwards. I said I did
which is the truth but in my own way. After this she con-
fronted me with the problem of Christ's divinity. She re-
ceived a courteous but negative answer. Not yet satisfied she
asked me what I thought about the Sacred Heart? I
acknowledged my complete ignorance on the subject, giving
her to understand at the same time that further discussion
would scarcely change my deplorable attitude. Finally she
said, "It is a great pity. I had put aside a medal representing
the Sacred Heart. A Carmelite monk gave it to me. I cher-
ished the hope you would wear it."
I fled. Just fancy! Can you see your brother going back
to the front with the clink of amulets about him! In spite of
all this the said sister is a very kind woman who gives herself
up entirely to her work; she is a constant blessing to those
who are seriously ill. When I find the Catholic faith so deep-
rooted, it seems to me that some kind of a magician has carried
me back to the Middle Ages. After this conversation I felt
as if I had been dreaming. Au revoir, my dear, I do not say
anything about the war, for there is nothing to be said. The
same uncertainty still prevails. When will the great offen-
sive take place? Will there be one? Of what will it avail
us? "Zat is ze queshtion?" said the Major, who is studying
English under my guidance.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 137
Givors, April 7th, 1915.
Dear B -:
Three days late in my correspondence! With the good will
displayed by German submarines, when will you get this
precious document? Having not much to say the matter has
no great importance. Life at Givors is at least as regular and
respectable as at Auburndale. I wish I had horses to exer-
cise. Cabby must be a new dog. The one I met, Angel's
contemporary, was Boulot or Boolo. What have you done
with him? Has he, too, tried to race with B. & A. expresses?
My brother was here two days, Easter and le lundi de Paques,
which as you know is a great holiday. We had a great ban-
quet with champagne. I did not get any as I was out with
my brother, but I heard great stories about it. When I re-
turned, Sunday night, there was a little package on my bed.
There was chocolate in it, and a cigar case full of cigars; also
a small box with a medal Joan of Arc on one side flags
and crosses on the other. Joan of Arc as you may remember
(even though you are unbaptized) is a Saint of France. As
the region about here is quite firmly catholic, people from time
to time try to give us medals and other holy trinkets reminis-
cent of the Middle Ages. So far I had skilfully escaped having
to accept any. This one I shall keep because it is quite artistic
in design and because Joan is such a recent, up-to-date Saint
that she must be quite harmless.
It's no wonder that the United States keep a sharp lookout
concerning their navigation rights. I think that, throughout
the whole business, your country has kept to a very wise and
very just policy. Whatever may be true of Wilson along busi-
ness lines, he has won for himself the respect and admiration
of the belligerents.
138 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
April 12th, 1915.
To B -:
Your letter via Besangon came via Valence to Givors. I
am wondering why you don't get word from me regularly.
Perhaps the sailing of mail boats is purposely irregular in view
of the submarine activities of the Dutch.
Nothing new here. I may leave the hospital April 26th.
If I am put off again, it will be until May 10th. No one
can say but that I am giving the war a fair chance to change
its nature and even to come to an end. If Austria gave in, that
would be a great blessing. This is a period of great uncer-
tainty and expectancy. Something seems to be accomplished
near Verdun, but ye gods! it's slow and costly work.
G (Houston, Texas) tells me that American papers
pay attention only to what is going on on the British front.
Please tell American journalists that the total front is 630
miles long. The English take care of thirty-four miles, the
Belgians defend twenty miles, and we are holding the remaining
576 miles, which is nothing at all side of what the Russians
are doing, but is pretty good just the same.
The victims of the great war at this hospital are getting
along so well that every evening they give terrible concerts.
Two violins, two accordions, one mouth harmonica and a tin
flute are brought into play. A certain censorship is exercised
over the performance by le Sidi, a Kabyl, from a regiment of
Spahis. He knows hardly any French, but has definite ideas
on the kind of noise he wants to hear. His speeches are lim-
ited to "Y J a bon" or "Y'a pas bon." He is a terrible rascal,
to my mind. He looks like a hyena, and I should tremble
for France's fair name if many like him ever penetrated into
Germany and got away from their officers.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 139
Lire ar Givors is certainly as regular and uneventful as it
is at Auburndale. There are birds but no horses. There arc
dogs, however. All the town dogs are interested in us. They
sneak into the court of the hospital when we come in and go
out with us on walks. Turc does not come along, being too
dignified. He is a huge Dane (not pure) and his business
is to keep cats out of the way of the sisters. Kiki, a doubtful
mixture in which the spaniel predominates, used to be the most
faithful, but we lost him in the hills one day or in the streets
of Givors, where attractions of all kinds fairly swarm and
tend to divert the mind of patriotic dogs from higher things.
I don't believe that your mother will be surprised about your
garden. I'll bet a twenty-five cent cigar Romeo and Juliet
variety which to my mind is the last word of high life and
dissipation that you will plant some of the seeds upside down
and will not plant the rest at all and that when the few seeds
planted will have struggled up into planthood, you will find
that you have a straggling lot of reseda, potato plants and
dandelions, all mixed up. Them's my prophecy.
I don't say that you will not fill all the oil barrels in the
garage with rabbits. I believe that you will be more success-
ful with animals than with plants. Why don't you go into
rabbit raising for money? A friend of ours did it. The skins
sold very well. In six months he only lost 20,000 francs.
My family write me of their plans for the Summer. They
have rented a cottage in the Pocono Hills somewhere in New
York state a fine lake, sleeping porches, etc., etc. They invite
me over. If this war only could come to an end!
If I ever get on the ship for New York I'll carry on so that
I'll have to be put in irons for an hour, at least until I am
normally seasick.
140 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
April 13th, 1915.
To Miss H :
Your letter of March 29th came this noon. Sorry to hear
that the Red Cross is having internal scraps but I dare s&y
ihat the pro-allies are having it all their own way, because in
this region we have just received bales and bales of clothing
and woollen things coming from America. In those cases,
when there are notes and addresses put in by the senders, the
men have been told that they could and ought to send a word
of thanks. That is an unusual permission, because as a rule
correspondence with foreigners is not encouraged. It has been
proved that a certain tobacco firm Swiss sent our men
cigarettes and a few kind words simply in the hope of locat-
ing troops on our front, hoping that some would say in
their reply, just to what corps they belonged and where they
were. The firm, of course, was German disguised as Swiss.
Well, it is certainly fine to receive these tangible proofs of
America's sympathy as it was also fine to see a whole section
cf Ford cars taking our wounded back to safety America!
cars run by American college men. Did you know that twelve
of them have received the "war cross," which is given for
some specific deed of bravery? When I saw them last, they
had to go over a certain hair-pin curve which was shelled con-
scientiously every day by the Germans.
I have had a streak of good luck or rather I think I have.
I am pretty sure of going off to a camp near here for a sort!
of three weeks' course in military arts and sciences. As the
battalion is about ready to go back to the hills, that means
that I am going to get out of at least three weeks in the trenches
and as April is a wet month, the matter is not to be sneezed
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 141
at. Besides I'll be perhaps higher up in the hierarchy when
I come out. You know I am beginning to have difficulty in
spelling out English words. It is nearly two years since I
have heard your tongue and I suppose I am forgetting it a
little.
Well, the Germans have not yet taken Verdun and I don't
believe they will, and if they did they wouldn't have won the
war for all that. There is hope that the English put in a good
lick before long and the Russians likewise. Nobody wants
to see another winter's campaign.
142 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Givors, April 17th, 1915.
To Mr. W. V :
Did you expurgate my letters before allowing them to be
read to school children? I am not always guarded in my
language when I write to Dab. No, Bill, we can't take pictures
on the front. We would get shot if we did, shot by our own
men, I mean. I do have one or two yarns to tell about but not
much more. I could never last two weeks telling stories. That's
not saying that I won't drop on you as soon as the occasion
presents itself. This trench war offers few diversions. It's
the recurring of the same two or three things. Most of the
time we sit still in the ditch or in front of it. Periodically
shells go hissing overhead, exploding behind. At night there
are some of the damndest farces acted out that one could
imagine. A sentry hears the rustling of a leaf or the starting
of a hare or else imagines simply that he has heard steps and
takes a few shots in the dark. Then everybody gets up and
takes a look through the holes in the mud wall and seeing
the flashes of the guns, everybody begins to send a few across.
Then the machine gun men on both sides, though they see
nothing at all, begin to turn the crank just for luck and both
sides blaze away in earnest. It's a devilish racket for fifteen
or twenty minutes, then the pandemonium stops as illogically
as it began and everybody snoozes for a while. Then it starts
again. No one gets out of the trench, usually no one is hurt.
If it lasts longer than usual, one side or the other sends up a
skyrocket which illuminates everything for a minute as if it
were daylight, then if everything looks normal, quiet reigns
again. Rifle shooting at night is nearly always too high. I
have been caught between two fires on such an occasion, and
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 143
I did not even hear a bullet whiz by. They all went skyward.
Men, a mile back, way up on the mountain side, have been
hit by bullets which were meant to strike a trench two hundred
yards away. That's why the platoon cooks who do their work
a half-mile to a mile back of the firing line, have to pick the spot
for their fires pretty carefully.
I certainly should like to be at Bridgewater this coming
June. No such luck, however, short of a miracle. There is
no talk of peace here. The country is putting up a tremendous
effort and neither men nor money will be spared to put our
neighbors out of our territory and to clear up Belgium. We
owe the Dutch a few and we are going to pay them in full.
You can have no idea of the way they have treated our border
towns and our border population. I have not seen the worst
by any means, still I went through a town two-thirds of whose
houses had been burned to the ground, and without any mili-
tary necessity, neither had the civil population done anything
to deserve such a treatment. Near here there are eight hundred
women refugees from the North. Two hundred of them are
about to give birth to children who are the result of rape, com-
mitted by German soldiers last Fall. These women are only
a few of the victims. The government is going to establish
great orphan asylums to take care of the little Dutch bastards.
It's clear that in the majority of cases the mothers will refuse
to take care of the poor kids or at least will never consent to
bring them up with their families. So you see that if there
is real trouble ahead for Deutschland, it's not altogether a pity.
Tell Dab that, at our next meeting, I shall kick him where
he wished to have me wounded.
144 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Givors, as usual, April 19th, 1915.
To B :
Your sister having secured a parrot with a dog's mind and
fidelity. I dare say that the next letter I shall receive from you
will be dated en route to Central America. Such a trip may
become necessary to get away from the responsibility of the
garden about which you are as reticent, in your last, as an
official communique about the loss of a trench. I don't say
those things in a mean spirit or with any idea of taunting you,
but simply because such seems to be the situation to me.
Nothing new at Givors. My wound is so reduced in im-
portance that the only dressing it requires is a piece of pink
court-plaster big as half la postage-stamp. It is too bad.
I can no longer feel like a victim of the Great War. A few
weeks ago I could still hold my arm stiffly and tell friends to
slap me on the other shoulder. It gave me considerable dignity,
in my own eyes at least. But now it is all up. Well, no one
can expect to have a good time all the time. Resuscitated
patients are sent away to Lyons, then on their week off, every
other Monday. They may ship me Monday next, April 26th,
and if they do not I am absolutely sure of going May 10th.
I shall be perfectly willing to go, as hospital life, when one
is well, is exceedingly tedious.
It is with increasing delight that I see the Germans and
German-Americans getting in wrong with Uncle Sam. It is
fortunate that Wilson and not the Colonel is at the head of
affairs. It would be too bad if the United States gave up
their allegiance to Washington's advice to keep out of European
imbroglios. In due time you may have trouble enough with
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 145
Japan to satisfy any natural craving for excitement that you
may have.
Are you coming to Europe this year? The French papers
are starting up talk, in a mild way, tending to reassure fright-
ened tourists and frequenters of watering-places. It looks as if
the San Francisco exposition might look more attractive to
your compatriots than Aix-les-Bains.
After much rain and cold winds, we are having perfect
weather. The valley of the Rhone is, south of here, one great
orchard. And in my innocence, I used to think that the Santa
Clara valley was unique au monde. Every afternoon, we go
out, a young Auvergnat and I. He is a kid twenty years old,
belongs to the alpins. He had two bayonets shot off in the
course of five charges up the side of the Hartmannsweilerkopf.
He came here with me, in the same train, having a toe badly
frozen. We go in the hills back of the hospital, lie in the
grass and discuss the war situation, which is always the same.
Diversity is brought into these proceedings by my friend's de-
structive spirit. He starts on the run and with great yells at
all animals. Last time but one, he brought discomfort and
even pain to one black cat, one otter, one hen-pheasant and
two water-adders. He is a young savage from the forests of
the Massif Central.
By this time you must know that my trousers are not red.
I have felt humiliated to think that you thought me capable
of a following low enough to wear red trousers. Don't fail
to acknowledge having been correctly informed on the matter.
It seems that the chasseurs a pied fare now receiving round,
pancake shaped caps like the alpins. They can be pulled over
one side of the face, hiding completely the cheek and the eye.
Calabrian bandits never look more rakish than our alpins.
146 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Givors, Rhone, April 22d, 1915.
To Miss H :
First of all let me thank you again and allow me to say
once for all that it is very comforting to find that one is well
thought of by those whom one respects most. Don't think that
I am getting to be a conceited ass. I only wish to know that
you and your father have given me, at the right time, the right
kind of strength. I shall write to your father as soon as I
shall have seen again what is going on in the world. Hospital
life is necessarily uneventful.
My famous wound has kept me out of trouble much longer
than I possibly could have hoped. On coming down from
Steinbach I kept wondering whether I would "draw" two or
three weeks off. Now it is the end of April and the surgeon
told me yesterday that I would not be shipped out of here
before May 10th! That means no firing line before June
1st at the earliest, since we have a week's permission then
take two weeks as a minimum to regain some training. It
takes at least tHat time to get back into the habit of carrying
the "ace of diamonds," that is, the knapsack, with any degree
of ease. If they are not through with the ditch method of
waging war it'll show that the war is definitely a deadlock
and that it's time for peace. It is very hard to see how the
German lines can ever be knocked out of condition. So far
he who attacks is at a tremendous disadvantage. The English
at Neuve-Chapelle lost heavily and about thirty thousand of our
men were laid up in the capture of Les Eparges. Every time
the Germans try to come back at us they get slaughtered.
As a friend of mine, who helped beating back a counter-attack
two months ago, was telling me, "It's real sport to see them
coming along four deep." That kind of "sport," however,
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 147
working both ways, as it does, is bound to become unpopular.
The one decent thing that may come out of this horrible
mess may be the final discrediting of war in Europe, and per-
haps elsewhere. It's an idea which keeps up French soldiers
at present. One often hears them say, "Well, whatever happens
to us, our children at least will be freed from the curse of
militarism and all allied curses! It is strange to see how the
country at large seems to take the state of war for granted.
Except for a few stores that are shut down and for the fact
that only boys and middle-aged men work in the fields, together
with some women, one would never guess that the country
was at war unless one lived near the railroad track. Troop
trains keep coming up the valley, while Red Cross trains keep
going South. All peace talk is looked upon with suspicion
at present. The general feeling is that perhaps the Germans
have enough of it and spread rumors of peace to unnerve the
civil population. Everybody knows that there can be no peace
as long as the Dutch are still in Belgium and in the North
of France. Roosevelt who had not made a very good im-
pression on France at the time of his last trip because he gave
advice right and left and without being requested to do so,
is now becoming quite popular. I am wondering if in the
Colonel's pronouncements there does not enter unconsciously
or subconsciously somewhat the desire to get Wilson into
trouble. The colonel has certainly a virile, masterful person-
ality, but he is also such a good politician!
Do you feel haughty toward poor Amherst and draw un-
favorable comparisons between it and Easthampton? I don't
know Amherst very well. Only was in it a few times with
B , and the "touring" I did there was strictly restricted
to the space between his office and X-rays electric appliances
and the barn where he kept his two horses, Tuck and little
Nell, I think they were called.
148 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
It seems to me that now that you have a farm you are getting
lazy. At one time you spoke of nothing less than dairy farm-
ing on a scale to supply the milk trust. Now you only mention
a few hundred hens. Perhaps it is the pleasure given you by
driving the new horse which has temporarily made you forget
greater enterprises.
If you need expert advice on farm matters, ask my second
niece. Her fiance having had to give up the selling of strings
and thread has bought some land in Delaware, and M
thinks she can paint a buggy and discipline hens. I am sure
she knows very little about hens. Brooklyn is no kind of a
place to train lady farmers.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 149
Givors, Rhone, April 27th, 1915.
Nothing new since four days ago when I wrote. Nothing
ever happens here.
We seem to have been licked on three points of the front
this week. Still that's nothing more than usual. We advance
a few yards one day, then lose the same distance a little later,
to drive them out again. Perpetual see-saw all along the fron-
tier which must be fairly red with blood.
I don't see, can't see, how that war can end by arms alone,
the advantage always remaining with the one who does not
attack.
Your President is making a name for himself in Europe.
The press commented his message to Germany in very ad-
mirative terms. I am wondering whether Theodore will get
in wrong ultimately. Since the United States will not fight,
and may not be able to fight just now any way,; what is the
use of calling Wilson names? Theodore's language strikes me
as altogether too violent and self-contradictory. He says in the
same breath that Wilson ought to have shown fight and that
the navy is not ready.
Your saying that the plants of your garden were nearly
drowned out shows that you did some planting. Now I wish
that I could call back a certain letter mailed some time ago.
How utterly foolish to try to peep into the future!
150 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Givors, May 2d, 1915.
Nothing at all to write about. Absolute penury of matter
and of thought. Only the assurance that your garden is now
rivalling Mrs. Jack's and that my prognostics were all off. Still
as you could have thought for months that I wore red trousers,
I may be forgiven for having misjudged your ability as a gar-
dener. By the way, the French government has taken up your
suggestion and red trousers are now abolished. All infantry
wear a bluish uniform which blends with the landscape. It is
not called Alice blue. It is known as horizon blue. The
chasseurs are distinguised by something or other from other
infantry but I don't know what exactly. We may be given
the same kind of caps as the alpins. Theirs is the flat Basque
headgear such as are worn by the heroes in your pet story,
Ramuntcho.
Nothing new in the war except that the Dutch are bom-
barding Dunkirk and killing civilians. Imagine fourteen-incb
shells falling all about the streets of Auburndale. One, all
by itself, would blow up the seminary, your aunt's house, and
the home of Reggie all at once. When they fall in a field
they make holes each big enough to hold four or five Reggies
at their fattest.
Some say the war is going to last another winter. Others
claim that by the end of July we shall begin to see the last of it.
"I give my tongue to the cats,"* as the French say, and expect,
at best, to get stranded in the middle of the year and simply
have to live in Paris for six or eight months. I shall rent a
* To give up guessing.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 151
room 8x10 feet in darkest Quartier Latin and have one petit pain
for breakfast with chocolate; shall work until 1 P. M. in the
Bibliotheque Nationale, then go to lectures and straighten out
notes after a frugal lunch of cervelle au beurre, shall walk
on the bullyvards after a dinner the menu of which will vary.
By the middle of the week I shall know when to go to
Valence. Whatever week I am going, on one day of that
week, my brother and I are going to have a great banquet,
just the two of us. All kinds of wines and smokes. Will
return to 30 Bd. St. Jacques in the happiest mood. Warriors,
in all stories, are high livers and I shall make use of the
prerogatives of the calling.
This morning I had a hard task. One of the victims of
the Great War has a girl a normal school student, who
studies English and to impress her corporal, she casually
drops or rather slips in an English phrase in her correspondence
with him. To get vengeance he asked me to translate his
latest letter into English. So I did, with a few additions and
distortions. It is really a flamboyant love letter.
Well, I have no more to say; besides my cigar is all smoked
up, and that is about the length of letter one should not exceed.
152
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Givors as usual, May 10th, 1915.
Will your country and my country No. 2 declare war to
Germany? That Lusitania wholesale murder is not the worst
but one of the worst. For cold-blooded cruelty it comp&res
well with the sacking of Louvain, Malines, etc. The
Prussians must really be stark mad. I have just written
home that I would go back to the front with considerable vim
and determination since in a way I will be fighting for my
two countries at once, even if your government manages to
keep the lid on the part of the United States which is not
pure Dutch.
A few days ago my aunt wrote me that my sister would
doubtless come to see them and me this summer! I wrote to
her that the sinking of liners was bound to take place sooner
or later and that the ocean was no place for ladies, these days.
She will think me a great prophet.
It looks as if I might leave here a week from to-day. Will
write again in the middle of the week to give the latest bulle-
tins and communiques.
Life here continues to be flat and idiotic but quite painless.
I go out every afternoon and beat it all over the neighboring
hills. The thought of going away Monday next wakes me
up a little. Last week I thought I would go into a complete
nervous collapse I was so bored. Monotony in life is the
hardest thing to stand after moral anguish.
My brother is peeved. He had hoped that the worst of
the war would be over by the time I went back, and now he
sees that the end has not yet begun. He accuses the govern-
ment of procrastination and felony.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 153
In a moment of enthusiasm and grandiloquence I bet with
the surgeon here that the United States would declare war
to Germany within seventy-two hours ! Now that I have slept
over it all, I have a feeling that I am in for three bottles of
vin fin of some kind because I don't believe Wilson will fight
though, by Jove, he has as good a reason to as any head of
a government ever had. If Theodore were at the helm, you
would already be flying mixed but expressive metaphors.
Do you know that the Germans are kicking out of the de-
partments of ours which they hold, all the old men, the old
women and the youngest children, sending them starving and
half-naked back to us by way of Switzerland? I have an idea
that a great deal of the woolen things sent by your people
for soldiers have been saved up for those poor wretches, who
are a thousand times more than any soldier the victims of the
war.
Well, having nothing more to say, I quit. The wisest man
in the world could not do more wisely. Be good and remember
that nothing too mean can be said about the government of
the Germans. In my heart, I still believe that there may be
a few good Germans, but it's no time to talk about the ex-
ceptions that prove the rule.
Regards to Reggie. Tell him that I don't believe in fat
horses and that if I ever get on his back again I'll make him
lose ten pounds an hour for three consecutive hours.
154 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Translated.
Givors, the 13th of May, 1915.
To A :
American heads must be pretty hot. Just now it must be
rather uncomfortable to be even the grandson of a German.
1 fail to see how the American government can be satisfied
with an exchange of diplomatic notes. On the other hand,
it is very likely that if the Americans were to leave their
coasts defenseless they would within a fortnight receive a Japan-
ese ultimatum concerning the Philippines. Wilson is an honest
and courageous man. He will know how to get out of this
scrape.
Aunt L asked me a short time ago if you were not
coming to Europe this summer to make us a little visit. I
answered that the season was not propitious for a sea voyage.
This answer was made previous to the last Boche crime.
I start for Valence next Monday and I shall be at the
military depot on the 25th. O joy! I am already preparing
to say disagreeable things to the non-commissioned officers who
are expecting me over there.
No doubt you know that we have made a slight advance in
the region of Arras and that Italy is still ready to join us.
Have you read d'Annunzio's speech, the one he made while
standing on the steps of the Monument des Mille? Do read
it. It is to be found in Le Temps. It reminded me of Victor
Hugo, only much worse. I have never read anything which
so closely imitates the empty resounding of utter inanity.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 155
Valence, May 20th, 1915.
To Miss H :
Thank you for the little book which plunged me very
pleasantly in New England atmosphere, made me spend an
hour or so in New England, a part of the world which I like
very much indeed. The blossom of mayflowers added to
strengthen the local color of Mary Wilkins's story.
Madam, the French army is inoculated against typhoid. It's
v. mere accident that I have not undergone the process yet,
but I expect to be put through it at the depot next week.
Coming in irregularly as I did is the cause of my having
been overlooked so far.
The indignation of the United States about the Lusitania
must have been something formidable. Even now, I dare say,
it would take very little additional German cussedness to
bring the United States navy across the ocean. The message
sent by Wilson to the Imperial Government has created an
excellent impression among the Allies. French, English and
Swiss newspapers comment admiringly its excellent form, its
courtesy and its undoubted firmness of tone. I have an idea
that Wilson 'is going to do big things for international peace.
He combines very firmly patience and courage. He may be
big enough a man to give international diplomacy a brand-new
character which will be a reflection of his own integrity and
courage.
I left Givors three days ago to spend a week here. I go
around inspecting buildings with my brother. We also watch
the artillery recruits who are boys nineteen years old being
trained. They are pretty sturdy looking youngsters and are
having a great time trying to stay on horses recently imported
156 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
from Argentine. Tuesday next I shall be at the depot and
shall immediately try to direct the activities and mould the
intentions of my petty officers, a set of men who greatly need
to be educated, great as their native qualities may be.
I must run up street to rescue my brother from his office,
so goodbye, and thank you again for your kindnesses in the
plural, you will please notice.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 157
Amagny, Besangon, June 5th, 1915.
To Miss H :
Since the arrival of your last letter we have been sent out
into this hamlet, in the backwoods. There are twenty houses
and four fountains. We camp on the inhabitants who do not
object too much, so long as we buy enough stuff from them
to pay for the straw which we steal. My platoon has a nice
barn to sleep in. Not as nice as a New England barn, not
being nearly so high. It belongs to two farmers. One half
of it has a new coat of paint and the other a coating of what
must have been paint once. That's because one farmer is
rich and the other poor. We are right in the valley of the
Doubs among beautiful hills, but as we have to overexercise
among said hills, in spite of a pretty hot temperature for June,
we enjoy the landscape only at intervals. To-day my platoon
is on duty, keeping the peace and seeing that the laws are
obeyed. I am writing in the guard-house, which is really the
school house transformed. We have nice white pine boards
to sleep on. Our supposed business is to run in such members
of the French army who might do more than look upon the
wine when it is red. We have one in the lockup now. As
he was wounded recently and in addition saved, under fire,
first his lieutenant, then his corporal, we pass him cigarettes
and see to it that his stay on the humid straw of the jail is
not too bitter.
We leave in two days for some other places where we won't
stay long. They keep moving us all the time no one knows
why. We are all being vaccinated against typhoid. It takes
four infections to gain some degree of immunity. I give up
158 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
prophesying when I shall go back to the front not for a
month I guess but that is a prophecy.
Our friends, the Russians, are beating it away from P-r-s-
mysl, however it is spelt. The undaunted Italians are climbing
many hills with the hot weather a most creditable per-
formance. We have sent them a lot of artillery, so that they
may not come back too fast. Will the United States get mfetd
at Bill? These days are trying all right. Some say the war
will be over in July, but I can't see it. I think it's an all
summer job and into the fall. The Lord wants the nations
to decide that war is no kind of an occupation for any one.
As soon as something worth while happens, I intend to thank
your father for his kind letter but now life is too flat and
sordid.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 159
Amagny, June 5th, 1915.
To B: :
I may not hear from you very regularly for a while since we
keep moving. From Besangon we came here, then we were
told that we would move Tuesday next and heaven knows
where we will go after. We are getting some training. The
actions we go through seem so silly and futile compared with
the real article of last winter. Still it's quite necessary to
get into training again. No answer has been given yet as to
my application for an interpretership. I'm living in hopes.
I should like a change of occupation.
The village where we are is beautiful and miracle pretty
clean though several miles from the nearest railroad station.
It's in the valley of the Doubs Doo, not Dubs fine meadows
surrounded by long hills. We live in barns, sleep on clean
straw, eat beef boetif nature and rice then rice and boeuf
nature. But we can buy wine, cheese, etc., besides. I
am chef d'escouade" and have powers of life and death over
nine men and a cook male cook, if you please.
Now the Russians have received another licking and are
strategically beating it. The Italians should soon begin their
strategic retreat on Nice and Marseilles. We nearly retook
Lille but did not. Those who prophesied the end of the war
for the end of July may see their prophecy go following after
all the others made since August first, last year.
The papers say that the United States are full of fight.
It is not surprising. I am fully looking forward to a diplo-
matic rupture between you and the Kaiser unless the Kaiser
lies down flat and crawls on his stomach before Wilson.
It is hot as pepper out here in day time, but cold at night.
160
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
I find that lots of places have California's climate without
leave from Californians.
We are much more free here than we were in Besangon.
Yesterday I took the Oxford Book of French Verse which
Marie (a niece) gave me years ago and reread what there
is in it of Verlaine especially and Le del est par-dessus le toit
si haut si bleu very much to the point these days, since we
are prisoners of the nation. No dishonor connected with this
imprisonment, however.
Well I quit being exhausted. My best regards to your
family.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 161
Roche, Doubs, June llth, 1915.
Dear B :
Leading the most foolish life imaginable. All those who
came out of hospitals up to May 20th have gone back to
Besangon to leave for the front within a few days. The others
remained here, so that now we are thirty-five men at the
company, that is about two men by escouade. I have a barn
all to myself and I do nothing at all; just wait for hours to
roll by and they are slow rolling. This state of affairs can't
go on very long. I dare say the company will be completed in
a few days. At any rate we are happier here than in Besancpn,
being much more free to go about as we please. The country
is beautiful. The Doubs is much smaller than the Connecticut,
but its valley reminds me in spots of the Mt. Tom region.
And it's as hot as it ever was in New England boiling hot
as the humidity is very high and trying.
It's difficult to imagine the condition of the men who are
fighting now. It looks as if fighting was a rotten occupation
in summer as well as in winter. Italy has not yet begun its
strategic retreat and we are much pleased. We get little or
no news from the front these days. Something must be going
on, which either must not be talked about or will not bear
publishing. Oh! the monotony of this confounded war. One
wonders at times whether life will ever be normal again.
# * *
Now that Bryan has retired to civil life and is going to
start wild propaganda for Peace and International Benevolence,
you may end up in civil war, because Germany will feel safe
and will sink more neutral vessels. The war party and the
peace party in the United States will have abysses between
162
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
them and trouble will come out of them. Then I shall go
back to your country and reestablish peace. In years to come
there will be a group of La Fayette and me in the Public
Garden and in Golden Gate Park.
* * *
My people talk of going to the Pocono Hills for the summer.
They leave New York this week. It makes me sad to think
of it. To be sure I used to go camping nearly every summer,
but somehow, this year, I am sick of camping.
This is a muddled and muddling letter not due to soften-
ing of the brain, but to the heat and to the inactivity and
to the surroundings a wretched cabaret room with clouds
of flies which do lessen the pleasant effect of the fragrance of
roses that comes through the open window over which hangs
sackcloth in guise of curtain. A hen just came in. Rural is
it not?
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 163
Roche, Doubs, June 15th, 1915.
To Mr. G :
I asked the superintendent of the gas plant in Besangon
to read your letter; he is an intimate friend of my brother
and he receives me at his house as if I were one of the family.
He jumped up when he came to the word indemnity, and al-
though I am not excitable I agreed with him. You said that
were the Germans to keep their colonies it would be immoral.
It would be still more immoral if they were to keep what they
have stolen from us and from the Belgians. If by indemnity
you mean war expenses, I agree with you, for although we
were blameless this time, our share of responsibility in this
war dates back to our little military orgies of one hundred
years ago. On the other hand, an indemnity, which would
cover the value of property stolen by the Boches, would be
perfectly fair. They have made a clean sweep in the North
of France and in Belgium. I do not see why they should not
be held responsible for having so carefully packed and shipped
to Bocheland the machinery of all our mills and the furniture
of all our castles, before they set fire to the buildings them-
selves. They also flooded our mines in the North. It will
take a considerable amount of money to put back everything
in working order. I can not tell whether the loss is to be
figured in millions or billions, but it would be fair if all this
wealth were returned to France and Belgium. Whether the
payment of such a debt is to be called indemnity or described
under another name, the fact remains the same.
164
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
On all other subjects, I thoroughly agree with you. I
am not at all yearning to cross the Rhine, the cost would be
too great, and I desire still less to take a trip to Berlin, unless
I were to go as a tourist under the protection of Cook's Agency,
if it is still in existence after the war.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 165
June 18th, 1915.
Yours of June 2d at hand and contents noted. Nothing
doing out here, but much brewing. We are only thirty-five
at the company and we live in luxury, having a barn for two
and doing nothing to speak of. The brewing comes in from
the fact that rumors are all about us to the effect that we may
be sent to a camp near Lyons to form a new battalion
de marche so called, why, no one knows, as all battalions
do march more or less. Some say that that unit would go to
Italy, but no one knows we are as ever comme I'oiseau sur
la branche. A circular from the Secretary of War has been
sent around. It calls for student officers called aspirants.
Requirements a modicum of education and horse sense.
Chances of success greatly increased by wounds received in
battle. So I modestly presented my name and have already
been looked over by a depot commander and by a brigadier gen-
eral. If they have not ruled me out already, I shall be made
to try three written examinations (geography, mathematics
arithmetic to be plain history). If I pull through these
I shall go to some camp and get drilled until I can command
a section, that is sixty men. Later I may become a second
lieutenant, but that is in the dim future and it's to be hoped
that war won't be long enough to bring me military success,
fame or glory. At any rate, if I pull through the various
epreuves, I shall have a change of occupations altogether for
the better. On the other hand, since I did not do regular
military service, there are millions of chances of my getting
tripped up furthermore as I have hardly opened a book for
a year I know neither history nor geography. I have not
166 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
done an addition these last twenty years. So don't feel hurt
or surprised if I go back to the ranks and end the war with
a rifle and a sac. What I wish would happen is that having
gone through O.K., I might be appointed officier de liaison
with the British. No liaison in the worldly sense, you under-
stand. Troops, not ladies, are in question.
Your cousin is a very generous person. I am not now in
the position to see any family in want because of the war.
All the women whose husbands lived on daily wages and who
are at the front receive so much for themselves and an addi
tional sum for each child, so that there is no misery just now.
That will come later when taxes will have to be paid to cover
war expenses. Here we see none of the families ruined by
German depredations or French precautions. D , my
brother's friend, who has been so good to me in Besangon,
gave me some money when I left for the front, to help out
anyone whom I saw in need. It proved very useful as many
of my comrades and friends came from the North or from
poor families, and, literally, did not have a cent in their pocket.
One of them, coming from Douai had not been able to buy
anything whatsoever since August last. D 's money came
in handy, you may be sure. If, when I go back to the front
I meet cases which might interest your cousin I shall help them
out in her name and tell her about it later.
I am glad the Dutch have queered themselves in the U. S. A.
and I am equally glad that your country will remain at peace.
There is enough misery as it is.
My friend, C Chicago W. O. Gay & Co. (Boston) has
sent me four hundred and eighty expensive cigarettes and fifty
aristocratic cigars (Henry Clays.) His brother shipped them
to me three months ago from London just received their'
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 167
Roche, Besangon, June 23d.
What do you know about the war? The Russians seem to
be rapidly disappearing on the eastern horizon and the righting
in our neighborhood is worse than ever. Yesterday we were
told that the Fifth Battalion had participated in the doings
about Metzeral and had lost six hundred and twenty men. As
a result a big lot of men will leave Besangon to-morrow for
Alsace. If I had not applied for admission to the examination
leading to the job of apprentice officer I should have been sent
with the lot and could count on being near Munster three
days from now. I feel kind of cheap at being here while the
others are going to take their chances. The examinations come
July 6, 7 and 8. If I pass them, I shall go to a school near
Paris or else to a camp not far from here. If I flunk, I shall
go to the front P.D.Q. To tell you the truth, I have no desire
to come out as a section chief and to lead men to Heaven knows
what with the possibility of blunders and of remorse for a life
time. My ideal is to get in as an officier de liaison with the
British. That I would enjoy immensely but no one can tell
what calls in that line there will be. That kind of job does
not mean responsibility for the life of others just your own,
and the carrying of orders. The great advantage is that you
are not loaded down like a mule and are much more free.
I am doing arithmetic, geography and sub-elementary tactics
in the hay-loft where I now have my residence so as to be
prepared July 6th and following. Life is a funny thing all
right. A few days ago a brigadier general looked us over,
asked a few questions and made us manoeuver a section. He
decided we might all (about eleven) try the examinations.
168
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Some of the men going to Alsace to-morrow are returning
to the front for the third time, having been wounded twice.
It's pretty tough. The newspapers talk about men eager to get
back to the firing line. Let me assure you that that's con-
founded nonsense. Most of them are stoically indifferent,
others are determined and also disgusted.
A few weak sisters shout that they don't worry, but they
get drunk and that's a bad sign. For all it is a heavy sacrifice;
still taking all things into account, they show a good spirit.
They are a brave lot and their courage makes war only the
more damnable.
Will leave you now, having spoken my mind.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 169
Roche, June 27th.
Life at Roche, for me, is a pipe and a song. I do nothing
but read in preparation for the examinations of July 6, 7, 8.
I brush up history, geography, arithmetic and allied sciences;
also I learn what to do when bringing a troop in a village,
how to protect it on the way, how to protect it while camping,
etc., etc., how to go next to the enemies' lines and rubber, etc.
all things about self-evident but wrapped around in words.
If I had not had myself registered as aspirant or eleve
officer, I would be in Alsace at this moment. At Metzeral,
my battalion lost six hundred and thirty men, including all
our officers. The commandant was wounded in the mixup.
He fell and the Germans pounced on him and finished him
up with the butts of their guns. Then our men became en-
raged, cleaned out the Germans and did not make a single
prisoner. I leave to your imagination what this last statement
means. Of course, a detachment had to be sent immediately
from Besangon to fill in and it was my turn to go but as I had
registered and passed the first two tests, I was not taken along.
I wish I could tell whether the friends I made in the trenches
last winter are still alive or not.
With the swiftness of the Russian retreat and the small
advances made by our great efforts it looks like another winter
campaign or else peace negotiations on unsatisfactory terms,
unsafe peace. Our hope is that the Germans having pushed
the Russians off the map, will attack us again and try to cut
our lines attempts which would undoubtedly fail and cost the
Germans enormous losses. But this is no war; it's a long
continued butchery.
170
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
The Stanford people have renewed my leave of absence so
my job is safe. Long live the U. S. A., where people do always
the right thing by one!
I am going to Besanqon to dine, sup and talk with Dulac.
Train at 8:45. Letter written at 6:30 A. M. What do you
think of that?
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 171
Roche, June 29th, 1915.
To Miss H :
The Vermont picture was certainly very New Englandish.
Mt. Sterling is an old stamping ground of my brother-in-law's.
It's a part of the world he makes for during the short vaca-
tions of the school year and into which he makes raids some-
times in summer. There are days when I wish with great
intensity that I could climb into a canoe, even though I have
done quite a bit of camping, first and last, this unacademic year.
Nothing very new out here, but the same painful state of
tension, increased now that the Russians are beyond the horizon
line. There are going to be special examinations for St.-Cyr,
the French West Point. I modestly applied for the privilege
of trying them. They are coming off July 6th, 7th and 8th,
so I am plugging upon them. Any one might have thought
that the Ph.D. examinations would be my last.
If it had not been for those examinations I would be in
Alsace now. My battalion attacked at Metzeral and lost
six hundred and thirty men, so that reinforcements had to be
rushed from Besangon last week. Our little success in the
valley of the Fecht cost us dear. The four thousand beds in
the hospital here are again occupied and more Red Cross
trains keep going south. It looks like complete mutual de-
struction and is disheartening, but every once in a while some-
thing happens that braces one up. Two days ago, one of the
men here had his wife and three children come down from
their home which is at St.-Die in the Vosges. I had a talk
with her. She was in St.-Die during the seventeen days of
German occupation. She saw with her own eyes a soldier
go by her house with a baby stuck on his bayonet. She showed
172
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
me the baby carnage which has a rifle ball streak on it. She
and her children and six other women had taken refuge in the
cellar, and the Dutch fired into the cellar. Her youngest was
in the baby carriage at the time and escaped by a miracle.
Other babies did not escape.
When the French retook the town, there was, of course, a
final bayonet charge. That woman was made to stand against
the wall of her house all the women were lined up that way
along the street so that the Germans could fire and the French
could not, but fortunately the bayonet proved sufficient. Also
women and old men were tied to chairs and placed across the
streets to form human barricades. Those things took place
last fall and the German soldiers may be sobered up by now
and behave better, but their debt is heavy. So, if money lasts,
war may go on through the winter again.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 173
Besangon, July 7, 1915.
Great business, all over. The three examinations passed
without great difficulty. I'll know in a week or two, more
likely two, whether I have passed or not. Speaking modestly
I will tell you that in my professional mind there is no doubt
about my having passed. On the other hand, there are some
three thousand candidates all over France and many factors
come into the business besides the passing more or less childish
examinations. I am going to wait in great dignity for the final
outcome. If you were only here we would go off on a bat this
very afternoon.
It seems to me your press is boiling over once more about
Mr. Morgan's misadventure. That man, Holt, is clearly
crazy. The Germans are not lucky with the United States.
Reputations that need being plastered with a mask of innocence
to keep before a decent public should not be bolstered up by
impudent bluffers like Dernburg and by maniacs like Holt !
Here I am living with the Dulac's, who are as hospitable
and charming as ever. These last two days, it has not felt
much like war time, though the fighting seems to have started
up again on the whole front with renewed intensity.
174
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Roche, July 10th, 1915.
Dear B :
Just two words French deux mots, since I have swamped
you with communications this week. Nothing new, except
that this company is being reformed with all kinds of human
odds and ends infantry from various regiments, men once pro-
nounced unfit for service, then called after second examination,
and M.D. second thoughts of doubtful sincerity, territorials
who are nearly forty and who ought to stay at home. It is some-
what depressing. Where in thunder are Kitchener's three mil-
lion men?
I hope that next time I write I shall know about the result
of the examinations I tried to pass last week.
* * * To-morrow, Sunday, I am again going to Besangon
So far I have been very lucky to get away from this town.
I should like very much now to take a trip to America.
Did you see my book? The Oxford press, American branch,
New York, sent me a copy of it. My sister did all the proof-
reading, so there are no mistakes in spelling. Thanks to her
and to me the Great American Public has now a School
edition of Racine's Berenice. I may make $5.00 on it, this
coming academic year; nothing like prospect of great wealth
to make life rosy.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 175
July 10th, 1915.
Dear B :
Nothing at all to relate. We had a nice lieutenant. He has
been replaced by an ass of a captain, the type of the perfect
fool. He does all he can to make life unpleasant and we can
do nothing but smile on his doings.
No news yet from those examinations; hence no way of
telling whether I shall ever be able to have my picture taken
in another uniform. You probably have forgotten what I told
you about my present garb and think of me again as wearing
red trousers, which is doing me great injustice. Nothing but
dark blue, please recall, with a few very fetching canary yellow
trimmings a charming combination.
We took an eighteen-mile walk between breakfast and dinner
to-day; that's probably a great deal more than you did in the
same time. We got drenched, which added to the pleasure
of the ramble. We went by a place where a signpost, pointing to
a trail in the woods, said "To the greatest tree in Franche-
Comte." I went out of my way to see it. It would have
looked like a toothpick or more politely, a diamond match,
side of any self-respecting American tree. And I said,
"America first. The Biggest in the World." That, I said to
myself, naturally, so as not to hurt the feelings of the natives.
The French are touchy.
No news from America. My Chicago friend tells me that
the Allies, barring the slaughtering of civilians, are doing as
much harm to American trade or rather much more, than the
Germans with their submarines. I am ashamed of us but,
no doubt, there cannot be a war of this size without general
176
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
injustice all around. The only thing I can think of in way
of excuse is that this war in a way is also your war, for if
Germany were supreme in Europe, you would see yourselves
in trouble with that power before many years, and you would
very soon suffer in the administration of your country on ac-
count of your large German-American population. So, we
are all doing it for your good and it hurts us more than it
hurts you. So saith the hypocrite.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 177
Roche, Doubs, July llth, 1915.
To Mr. H- -:
Thank you very much for your long letter and let me
also thank you for the shorter one which came at a time when
the feeling of being trusted and "believed in" by others was
particularly precious. It is a letter which I will feel like read-
ing again if I have to spend again any considerable number of
days in a ditch with shells kicking up the dirt all around. I
shall read it as a moral tonic, not because I believe what you
say in it, but in order to know what I must try to live up to,
in such moments. The "Billy" referred to was the Kaiser,
but l:he information about Bryan was very welcome. He be-
longs doubtless to the great mass of utopists who know what
they dont' want, but don't know what they do want and are
sincerely grieved because people at large, giving up all hopes
of understanding what they are driving at, end by accusing
them of hypocrisy or of insanity. They are the plague of the
Peace Movement. Such men are useful in arousing the public
conscience, but Heaven help the land that tries to follow them
in the execution of its business. It is in part thanks to them
that the line of forts along the Belgian frontier, a set of de-
fenses for which army men had been clamoring for years past,
had never been built. And yet had we had enough guns at
the battle of the Marne, the Germans would now be thinking
it over on the other side of the Rhine. That battle will always
remain a puzzle. How did the Germans ever manage to get
licked ? They had everything in their favor, organization, num-
bers, enthusiasm? Yesterday was the 14th of July. It was
celebrated very mildly. The stunt of the day in normal times,
178
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
is a military parade and review, everywhere where there is any
body of troops. A year ago some 700,000 men took part in
the performance all strong, healthy boys between the ages of
21 and 24. How many of those are alive now? Perhaps
50,000, perhaps less alive and well, I mean. In my bat-
talion once in a great while a man from the years 13, 12 or 11
turns up (having reached 20 on these years) and he is looked
upon with amazement and admiration. As a rule he was
very severely wounded last fall or else he is going to the front
for the fourth time, perhaps, after having had numberless
escapes and a very respectable number of small wounds. When
these men formed the nucleus of the army we had an immense
reservoir of strength. It may be that the secret of the battle of
the Marne lies in the tremendous energy of those boys who
felt that it was their business, their own special avocation to
protect their country. Our army is still good, but it is not
made of the same stuff. Its intentions are just as good, but it
is no longer in the twenties. Still it is wonderful to see the
spirit of the boys of 18 to 19 who have just been called to
the colors it is wonderful but sadder than any one can
imagine.
Well, may this nightmare end soon.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 179
July 15th, 1915.
To Miss H- -:
I ought to have acknowledged your kind letter of June 24th
sooner. Still if you knew how tiresome life is these days,
you would not blame me very much. It is one long drawn-
out bore. Last week I went to Besangon to pass three two-
hour examinations which may or may not give me a chance
to go to some camp of instruction and be trained for the work
of "aspirant," which is the round below second lieutenant.
Ever since I have been waiting for results to be published
and results are always fabulously slow in coming. Any way
the thing was competitive and as there were more than 150
candidates by military sector and as there are twenty-one such
sectors my chances of being ignored by the authorities are very
great. I tried for those examinations not because of any par-
ticular faith in my military genius, but because of the following
piece of reasoning. The war is now a deadlock and it will
either end in two or three months or else it will last all winter
and also next summer. If it ends in a comparatively short
time, leading to an unsatisfactory compromise, I don't care to
get killed or maimed in the least meaningless and purposeless
skirmishes. If it is going to develop into another winter cam-
paign, I should very much appreciate the relative freedom which
is the lot of any officer. I don't see myself spending again
any number of months staring at a loophole in the mud wall
of a trench. My reasons as you see are not heroic, but they
are reasons, I think.
All the men whom I knew last winter have already gone back
to Alsace. After three weeks only, some are already killed or
180 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
made prisoners. The battalion took part in the capture of
Metzeral and lost five hundred and fifty men. Then it lost
more men in repulsing the German counter-attack that fol-
lowed our advance. Now it is somewhere back of the line
"resting," which means that having lost practically all its offi-
cers and being reduced to about one-third of itself it has to
be completely reformed. I dare say not one of my last winter's
friends are now at the front. The horror of this war comes
to one in full when news of this nature is received. Out here
things would not be bad if the men in command were not the
leavings and scrapings among officers. It stands to reason that
the really good ones are not kept in the back country. The
chap now over us went crazy last winter when a shell ex-
ploded too near him. I can assure you that he has only partly
recovered. His presence does not tend to make Depot life
cither glorious or pleasant. Still it is more dull than actually
disagreeable.
The slushy German note seems to have stirred a pretty hor-
net's nest in your country. It's hard to see how it could be
otherwise. In everything the Germans seem to be outdoing
themselves in rascality and flat-footedness. The strange thing
is that with their terrible military strength, they did not need
at all to be grossly criminal and then sneaky. If they had
attacked us by way of Belgium, but without committing every
kind of crime on the way, why, in spite of the violation of
Belgian neutrality, the world at large would have become
accustomed to the situation and their purely military successes
would have finally won the admiration of all non-combatants.
But it seems to be a rule without exception that all great rascals
are also sooner or later great fools so the Prussians sunk the
Lusitania, carried on a ridiculous campaign in the United
States and even were represented by insane criminals who made
attempts on the life of your most preeminent men. These
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 181
actions, together with the asphyxiating gases, compensated the
fact that they caught us unaware and half prepared and also
destroyed the moral effect of their really splendid fight against
Russia. We, the French, are grateful for these little favors.
Well, some big gun is in the neighborhood inspecting our
barns, so I must be on hand.
182 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
July 27th, 1915.
To B :
Life is but one long examination, M.A., Ph.D., A.B., Nor-
mal School examinations, then aspirant examinations, then
finally, yesterday, English interpreter's examination. It will be
funny if I don't get anything out of all that; It will also be
sad, very sad. Since the Russians have taken to the tall tim-
bers around Warsaw, there are rumors to the effect that the
English are going to get busy and take a sizeable portion of
the front, giving the French troops or armies a chance to have
more depth. You know, of course, that our national defect
is lack of depth. Well, to resume, that may be the reason why
they are calling suddenly for interpreters. I passed the exam-
ination as you may imagine, but have no way of telling whether
I shall be chosen or not or when. Uncertainty is the motto
of everything military.
The way I feel now, I should like very much to go with
the English. At first, I wouldn't hear of anything except
returning to Alsace, but since the capture of Metzeral no week
goes by without my learning that some friend has been
wounded or killed and at present there can't be anybody left
of my last winter's friends, so that returning to the Fifth
Battalion does not mean much to me any more. Being with
the Tommies would be new and interesting for a while any-
way. I should like it better than being an officer, as I have
no way to tell whether I have any leadership in me or not.
I can do what's to be done, but I don't like to drive others,
especially when life and death are in question.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 183
Roche, August 5th, 1915.
To Miss H :
No, no, indeed! I don't intend to give up the joys of
teaching for those of an officer's Kingdom of boredom. To tell
the truth strictly, joys should be replaced by freedom. As you
suggest, it would be idiotic, at my time of life, with thin gray
hair, to change profession. Besides, military life, in pe'ace time,
and on the lower rounds, must be fatal to brains and all.
What seems certain is that I am sure to get out of this
blamed little town which is not very pleasant to inhabit, es-
pecially when one's home is forever a barnloft overlooking pig-
pens and the like. The farmers out here don't raise only
strawberries and honey-suckle, I assure you. To-day I learned
that I was admitted at the military school of St.-Maixent
where I must betake myself so as to start business August 25th.
The course lasts four months, so that the Dutch will not see
my face and its wrath until December. By that time the
Russians may have started on another round trip of seeing
Eastern Prussia. I also passed the English interpreter's ex-
amination. What will happen if I am claimed in both places?
Excuse this hurried note. The newspaper clippings you en-
closed interested me very much. The colonel is the same old
boy! As for the Germans and Bryan they seem to be "in bad."
Roche, August 6th, 1915.
To Mr. G
Your letter from Boston was received with joy and read with
still greater joy specially after your confession and expres-
sion of repentance in connection with W. J. Bryan. Your
preceding letter had positively astounded me. I do not believe
184 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
that W. J. Bryan is a rogue (farceur) after the French style;
he is an Anglo-Saxon rogue. Whatever he may do, he will
always be in his own eyes the righteous. Every time he is going
to do a mean trick he begins by justifying his deed, wrapping
it all up in fine, generous sentiments, beautiful virtuous com-
monplaces, an easy thing for him to do, as he is the kind
of orator for whom only those words count which awaken
some good strong sensation, preferably pity or indignation.
The French rogue who meets with success is usually an in-
tellectual knave (roue) who has hardly any illusions and even
fewer about himself than about anybody else. His Anglo-
Saxon counterpart begins by tricking himself into believing in
his own probity, he has to an uncommon degree the typical
fault of the Puritans, selfrighteousness. He is full of empty
high-sounding sentiments, "whatever his enemies may say about
him, his purpose is beautiful, beautiful."
The fall of Warsaw has been officially announced to-day.
It has not stirred in the least the inhabitants of Roche-les-
Beaupres, as they are very much engrossed with harvesting. I
believe that the general state of mind in France is more or less
what it was last September, during the retreat of the Marne.
People used to think: Evidently it is a very unpleasant ex-
perience but the end must be and will be a success.
These wretched Boches are pretty strong. Had it not been
for the Belgians and other atrocities, from a moral point of
view,,, they would have thoroughly beaten us by their prestige
afi$i^tneir successes would have won for them the enthusiastic
support of the neutrals, and we would have been materially
defeated. If it had not been for the destruction of Louvain,
the violation of Belgium would soon have been pardoned and
it would have been all up with us.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 185
Paris, August 24th, 1915.
To Miss H :
The newspaper clippings were very interesting. It looks
now with the Arabic affair, as if the United Stiates must break
with Germany. Whether you fight or not, does not matter
now. The moral effect is what is needed. Germany may
apologize but that is not likely. In the Paris New York
Herald I see that camps for training are being formed in
the United States. Looks like business. Hardly any lights
in the Paris streets at night. Saw Notre-Dame by full moon
yesterday, a sight not seen for many decades. The Louvre
was dark as pitch. Shall be in St.-Maixent to-morrow
morning.
186 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
August 29th, 1915.
To Mr. C :
The letter and the baby's photo came. He is a fine husky
little chap who will soon be able to lick his father, thus aveng-
ing his godfather for many involuntary trips to the bed in
Normal Hall and in 53 College House. I am safe from all
harm until November 15th. I am now at St.-Maixent Mili-
tary School. If I did first-class I would come out as a second
lieutenant quit laughing but as I am with a lot of sharks
it's more likely that I may come out as a humble sergeant.
They are working us pretty hard physically and intellectually.
I feel about the way we did twelve years ago when we landed
in Cambridge; strange subject, no background, etc. Will
write more fully later.
St.-Maixent, August 29th, 1915.
To B :
Can't write a long letter because they have inoculated me
again for typhoid and the result is a general befuddling of
the brains and stiffening of the body.
No mail this week as my brother has not had time to forward
my letters as yet, for we are now nearly at opposite ends of
France.
We are to be here until November 15th. The work is
hard physically. We are on the jump nearly all the time. I
have no sure feeling about coming out as an officer. If they
give me a sergeant's stripe I'll have done fairly well. The men
who study here are all pretty able. Great many lawyers, some
artists, some sports, but all men with a good deal of education
and push to them. So don't scorn me too much if I come out
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 187
humbly. I have only six weeks of regular military training
to back me up in my aspirations.
Life here is one of great regularity. We have no time to
ourselves except Thursday night after supper and Sunday. The
rest of the time is all taken up with drills, practical exercises
out in the woods, lectures and readings. To think that I
should have come to what Dante calls "the midway point of
life" to get into this. One good thing among others is that
we are nearly all the same age. Also we are splendidly fed
really very good no longer the sad alternation of beans or
potatoes with beef as at the Depot. There, you have my life
down to the smallest details.
It looks now as if Germany would back down on the Arabic
question; which would naturally lead to apologies about the
Lusitania crime. To have Germany crawl w r ould be the best
thing, the best solution. I still doubt that she will crawl
enough to give you people adequate satisfaction. Will get
myself photographed one of these days, but not to-day, being
too sad with punctures.
188 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
St.-Maixent, Sept. 5th, 1915.
To Miss H :
I am tickled to death that the Germans saw fit to back out
before Wilson and the United States in the Arabic case. It's
a good lesson for them and fortunately one that will not leave
an heritage of hate such as would inevitably have been the case
had Wilson been forced to drastic action. The French press is
suspicious of Germany's meekness. They see in it a desire to
get peace talk well on the way while Russia is seriously in dis-
tress and while we are stuck on our lines. Everybody in France
is resigned to the idea of a winter campaign No. 2 and no one
wants to hear about peace now.
Nothing exciting at St.-Maixent. We work, more or less
intelligently, about all the time. We work so hard physically
that reading or thinking are extraordinary occupations. Nearly
all the time we dig model trenches or take trips, so as to be)
able to use the map accurately (no joke in this country which
is a complicated maze of sunken roads cutting through woods
and fields surrounded with high hedges). This is an old
Protestant center, depopulated more or less sinqe the days of
the Edict of Nantes. Still the "temple" looks in a very digni-
fied way at the cathedral which is at the other end of the street.
We are not far from La Rochelle, the mother of New Rochelle,
U. S. A.
We are being called to dinner, so excuse this hasty ending.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 189
Saint-Maixent, Sept. 12th, 1915.
To Miss H :
No, don't believe what Miss Addams is telling or rather
what she has been told. French soldiers don't get drunk each
time they go into a bayonet charge. I took part in one, and
not only we had nothing in our cans except water, but we had
had nothing to eat since breakfast (and it was two in the after-
noon), and we had no supper at all and breakfast only at 10 the
next A. M. I saw a charge start right from the very part of
the trench where I sat and what struck me was the perfectly
cold determination of the men who were to my left and to my
right and in front of me. Those who cut lanes through our
wires hit rhythmically and with perfect aim. There was no
bar-room atmosphere at all. The men in the school here come
from all corners and quarters of the front. I have asked
a dozen or so of those who have charged with the bayonet
what they knew about systematical distribution of whiskey or
what not and they told me that they knew nothing about it,
had always gone to it in the full possession of their powers.
One, a zouave, said that at "Vauquois" they had received a
half-pint of brandy the night before the attack. It may very
well be also that certain units which came from tough parts
of the population, such as the marines and other colonial
troops, the "foreign legion," etc., do get royally drunk on all
occasions, but they are the exception. The so-called "Gay-
Ones" who are military convicts may also have little weak-
nesses of their own. But you may feel certain that when the
majority of French soldiers charge, they go to it because they
want to and not because they are crazed by drink. Where
190 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
men do drink a great deal it's in the "Depots" when they are
bored and discouraged, having nothing particular to do and
being commanded by officers who cannot be trusted with a
command at the front. The papers have reported often that
the Germans did fill up, at times, on combinations of whiskey
and ether. A corporal from the supply service (I was with him
at the hospital) told me that he had smelled ether in the cans
of German prisoners but that's all pretty uncertain. It looks
as if Mr. Dumba might go home and be followed soon by Mr.
BernstorfT. Good for Wilson.
This is a hastily written note, excute its messiness. We
are rushed all the time for one reason or another.
One great event since yesterday. There are chasseurs a cheval
in this town and they are our enemies. Yesterday I was on
guard at barracks where those gentlemen are not supposed to
enter and one of their sergeants (marechal-des-logis, if you
please) went in, in spite of our objections and we are going to
get him locked up for his trouble and impertinence. This,
then, is a great victory of infantry against cavalry.
You see that our life is not made up of important events.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 191
St.-Maixent, Sept. 12th, 1915.
To B :
No mail from America this week; not very surprising since
the Germans are sinking our steamers off the roads of the
Garonne and since Bordeaux has replaced le Havre. Two small
ships were torpedoed off La Rochelle, a harbor fifty miles
from here, and the people of this region who know of war
. nly what they read in the papers were pea green with emotion.
All the Saintonge and Aunis squash-bugs thought that it was
all up with them.
Nothing new here, but there is a general feeling that some-
thing important is going to take place at last on our front.
English troops still keep coming and our own men are being
shifted from west to east so that our "line" is getting deeper
and deeper. Maybe I'll get out of here for the final licks, that
is, at a time when things will be very interesting. Perhaps I
will be sent with reinforcements from France to take Milwau-
kee. It looks like business in your country and my one-half
country. Mr. Dumba must be peeved and Mr. Archibald must
"envisager" his landing in his native land with some degree
of anxiety. There is no doubt that Wilson did the right thing.
It might have been better if he had acted sooner. Perhaps
now, there will be sensational developments.
Well, having nothing more to say I quit. Life here is pleas-
antly monotonous. Have not learned anything very new as yet.
We have been having a kind of review of all ordinary mili-
tary stunts. Later it will become more interesting. We work
more physically than with our heads.
192 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
St.-Maixent, Sept. 19th, 1915.
Again just a few words as life is slow as cold molasses
though it is really hot as Tophet these days. This region is
supposed to be very rainy and there hasn't been a cloud in the
sky for weeks. Every time we go off on a march we sizzle
away at an awful rate. We are always dressed for a Polar
expedition and the result is startling. Well, we will have a
winter campaign on our hands soon and I shall have something
else to whine about.
No great news of any kind. We belong more than ever to
the Nation body and soul. When will that kind of volun-
tary servitude end? My friend C writes me from
Chicago that the steel men whom he knows look forward cheer-
fully to two more years of campaigning! Ye gods! Well, the
Stanford Trustees are still holding my job open for me; the
Lord bless them.
My sisters are back to Northampton and Brooklyn respec-
tively. M , my second niece, gets married October 7th.
Somehow or other my nieces always get married when I can't
be on hand. Such is life.
Two months or so from now, I shall probably be going
through Paris again.
Don't be surprised at the way the stamps are placed on this
envelope. Being absent-minded for just a minute I pasted the
complete series on a letter destined to my Paris cousin, then
transferred them to yours with above result.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 193
St.-Maixent, Sept. 28th, 1915.
To Miss H :
Thank you for all the news, which praise be given are not
war news, and for all the clippings. I should judge from the
letter that a considerable portion of the United States' popula-
tion would not object to having a little fight. Well, it may
be just as well if you keep out of the mixup. It would be really
too bad if, after Europe had received such a lesson concerning
its craze of armament, you people had a spell of militarism!
The only raison d'etre of this hideous war is that it is the end
of European militarism.
Yesterday we heard that a big blow had been struck in
Champagne and that we had made about twenty thousand
prisoners and captured some seventy guns. But it seems that
we advanced only two miles on an average and no one knows
how much it all cost us.
If the prophecies of your brother's acquaintance about
Constantinople could only come to be realized soon! If we
held the Boshphorus, etc., things would be ended much more
quickly. All these German victories over the Russians have a
very bad effect on our little friends in the Balkans and all the
Russians need is ammunition and more guns. To think that
France worked hard to close up the Dardenelles under our dear
Emperor the Small!
I am writing this at the time when I should be studying
how many bricks it takes to stop a rifle ball! A scandal as
you see. But I needed a rest, having passed off three exam-
inations this week. O! you school days How to be a kid
after you have your Ph.D!
194 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
St.-Maixent, September 28th, 1915.
I am late, two days late. No fault of mine. We have been
having examinations and as we have hardly any time to study,
Sunday w*as wasted in reading dry-as-dust rules and regulations
tending to facilitate the murdering of Germans. Now those
examinations are over; they will begin again in two weeks.
Life here is intense. Most of the men who are in charge of
courses are good ; one is a blasted ignoramus.
We have just learned that our troops in Champagne made
twenty thousand prisoners and captured seventy guns. We
don't know how much it cost us, but the proof that our gen-
erals are not absolutely inactive is a relief. They probably
started on an "offensive" to try to balance Bulgaria's butting
into the game.
You are right in feeling that Americans can't as a rule ap-
preciate the solemnity of European scrapes. It's impossible for
them to understand because they have too little history back of
them. People in New England may dislike England because
they still feel a personal interest in the Revolutionary war just
as they have set opinions about the South because of the Civil
War. But you take the people of the Middle West and what
do they care for Plymouth Rock or for Gettysburg?
So we are all the creatures of our environment and it's no
wonder that Americans politically isolated and with the good
fortune of having had so far only men of a pretty high moral
character at the head of affairs, could not make out the du-
plicity of Germany which beats all existing records.
It's hard to write just now. We are made to keep a com-
pany's books. We put in the names of the men of this
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 195
company then make up fictitious meals there goes the con-
versation. "Moi je leur donne des sardines et du sel. Mot je
leur fiche des tomates 50 Kilos Tu es fou! Faut bien
une livre chacun! Des vermicelles, du frontage de gruyere.
Si je leur donne des pommes et du bifteck il ne me restera pas
d 'argent pour demain etc., etc.
I'll have to entrust this to the sergeant as we get out of
the school only Thursdays and Sundays.
This is a messy letter, but you will understand why.
196 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
St.-Maixent, October 2d, 1915.
To B :
We licked the Dutch in Champagne and we feel that this
is a proof that they will be licked again, then again, until they
get out of our country. It may take months, but we will do it.
There has been no excitement over the matter for the horizon
is still too dark and our losses must have been heavy, though
nothing like what the Germans lost.
Nothing new here. We go on shooting, marching, scatter-
ing, attacking hills where there are no enemies. It's perfectly
healthful as an occupation, but it is neither remunerative nor
elevating. Seven more weeks of it!
You had hard luck in your Adirondack's trip. My family
went to Big Moose, a fine little lake near Saranac. They liked
it very well except my brother-in-law who had no mountains
to climb, only lakes to walk to, blooming little lakes as he
scornfully called them.
I passed all my examinations last week, but we have another
set coming off in eight or ten days. Ye gods, what a bore!
And you can't even tell the examiners to "go to," without ex-
posing yourself to being court-martialled.
When I get out of here, I may get six days off. I shall!
bat in Paris and across France to Valence. Then off to Alsace
and the reconquest of Strasburg, Metz, Berlin and Leipzig.
The sergeant has just butted in on us for the "appel," and
in a few minutes the bugle will play the extinction des feux 1
so I must quit or run the risk of going to bed in "pinch"
darkness as my kid niece used to say. She gets married Thurs-
day next. Ye gods, but time flies!
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 197
Translated.
Saint-Maixent, October 3d, 1915.
To Mr. G :
At last the Bodies have been beaten on our front. Nobody
as yet thinks that a final victory is at hand, but the country
has heaved a deep sigh of relief, on hearing that their trenches
can really be turned topsy-turvey. Now, people face the fu-
ture with less anguish. They say the Germans are beginning to
worry. Their turn has come.
You talk as a philosopher, a house pulled down ; that is noth-
ing compared with the shelling of a town, but nevertheless it is
not a cheerful sight, not a cheerful sight at all, especially when
the house was a model house, a tailor-made house, if I may
borrow one of W 's pet expressions. And by the way,
you spoke of some of my friends rather slightingly. Do we se-
lect our friends because of their bright intellects or because of
their hearts? My friends are perhaps not geniuses, but at all
times I can count on their giving me advice, sympathy, help.
It is not because you write books that I cling to you and keep
writing letters to you. Your wife misunderstood me. All I
meant was that you not infrequently took the counterpart of
a given question merely because you liked to juggle with ideas
and I, being a simpleton, used to take your paradoxical state-
ments for Gospel truth until one fine day I discovered that
your greatest pastime was trifling with ideas.
This part of Poitou is Protestant. Twice I went to the
Protestant church. It gave me food for thought. The custom
of writing Bible verses on the walls is a very good one. While
reading the verses we think we hear old voices, ever so sweet,
198
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
which bring back to our minds in crowds childhood's memories.
But the devil take theology and dogma the official creed so
cheerless and so narrow. After all, these little churches have
a great deal of dignity, a cold dignity, to be sure, but touching
nevertheless. Here the congregation is mostly made up of
peasants and on Sundays you see nice old women wearing their
beautiful white caps.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 199
October 10th, 1915.
To B :
This week has been very rainy so we have spent most of our
time changing our clothes and cleaning our guns. Friday we
went on a far-off expedition to attack a town with blank cart-
ridges and shoo off some real cavalry (chasseurs a cheval). It
rained, then fog came. The captain got twisted on his bear-
ings and the section heads lost sight of the captain. Result,
half the company attacked from the wrong side and the other
half attacked and brilliantly captured the wrong town. Hence
great parlez-vous gesticulations, some swearing and a bad
lunch because the cuisine roulante which was to feed us got
distressed and stopped between the two towns and we had to
go to it instead of its going to us. Besides, the cavalry who
manoeuvred against us said we were in too large bunches and
claimed they could have killed us all to the last, which is only
a lie as cavalry is no good at all in our days with all due respect
to Reggie.
Last night we were out again. It was pitch dark. The
lieutenant who is trying to train us attempted to cut through
our lines, but I caught him as he was sneaking in and reaped
great glory, in my own mind, from that gallant act.
Otherwise life is pretty stupid. It may be different on cer-
tain parts of the front.
There is great satisfaction felt here at the way the United
States met ours and England's borrowing. The idea is that
it is not a financial venture so much as a proof of sympathy
and friendship on your part towards us.
To-morrow we dig ideal and perfect trenches and later go
off shooting. I am getting to be a reliable shot in spite of my
200 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
biconcave lenses. Still I may come out of this school only moder-
ately well as there are really too many things to get on to
and also one has to make believe he has a spirit of authority
verging on tyranny which I despise and which 1 can only put
on as a cloak.
I close for to-night, life being empty of interesting personal
details. Can you tell me what is going on in the Balkans?
We can make neither head nor tail out of it.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 201
St.-Maixent, October 24, 1915.
To B -:
No great things out here. The lectures et cetera go on for
three weeks more. Then there may be ten days given over
to examinations, then we will have a few days off, then we
will, according to all probability, be again at the nation's beck
and call.
Things look queer in the Balkans. It's quite clear that the
Greeks don't believe in our ultimate victory. It does not mat-
ter at all. We are going right on and we'll get them sooner or
later. The financial and moral backing which you as a nation
are giving us is a very encouraging feature in this dismal
business.
If I come through this war, I shall fight for the United
States in all their wars to come in my life time. California
may have one with Japan before I am made a full professor
at Stanford. You always were mixed up on the respective val-
ues of instructor, assistant, associate and Full Professorship,
so you really don't know when that war is coming.
We are going to get forty-eight hours off at the end of this
week. Too short to go to Paris. I shall go to La Rochelle
if I have my way to have a look at the Atlantic and try to
look over to Coney Island and Bass Point.
Can you recognize me on the postal? I am in the back
kneeling fourth from the left hard to recognize because of
my huge moustache.
The reason why I have not had my picture taken is because
there is a professional photographer at my escouade who keeps
promising that he is going to take us all and who never does it.
I am fifty million letters behind, so willcut it short now;
must tell my family what I am at.
202 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
1 J alace-Hotel et
Du Commerce, Place d'Armes,
La Rochelle, October 31st, 1915.
To B :
A half dozen of us are here batting around over All Saints'
Day which coming right after Sunday gave us a forty-eight
hours' furlough. This is precisely the ninth day of vacation
which your servant has enjoyed since September 6th a year ago.
Where are the happy days when the Trustees handed over
three months' vacations at frequent intervals?
This is a very interesting town old as the hills. The harbor is
guarded by two towers dating back from the sixteenth century
and the city gate is of the thirteenth. The harbor is nothing now
but a tiny basin filled with fishing schooners, with red, drab and
ecru and blue sails. The real harbor is four miles from here.
Just came from it. To my joy and amusement the first boat
in sight was a tank steamer from Portland, Oregon, and Los
Angeles. It had come on its innocent way loaded with oil and
cases that looked as if they might contain something that was
not oil. It was being unloaded by German prisoners under
guard so that I could not speak to the skipper, much to myi
sorrow. The Germans were not worked hard. They looked
well fed so that my conscience is at rest concerning the way
we treat prisoners.
Your card showing the Washburn House reached me the
day before I came here. I passed it all around to show to
the French that free America knows how to bring up its
children without keeping them under lock and key all the
time and that a dormitory was a pldasant home whereas a
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 203
dortoir is very much like a prison ward. The French need
to be taught lessons.
No one knows how I am going to come out of St.-Maixent.
For whatever has to do with getting along in the woods and
sneaking behind hedges I am all right but for all parade stunts
which I can't take seriously I am a joke. That's what my
lieutenant told me and he was grieved. So was I, but who is
going to give me a new kind of a voice which will allow me to
bellow like a bull? If I flunk out on the examinations and
you make fun of me or despise me I shall never forgive you.
Please tell me what we should do in the Balkans. It strikes
me that the situation is getting to be exceedingly muddled.
Just precisely a year ago to-night I was in the train on my
way to the front! Perhaps, in a month I shall not be far from
doing that again. Such is life and it's no use trying to under-
stand it. I can tell you with perfect sincerity that I do not
look upon that trip with very much anxiety being dead tired
of hanging around Depots and schools.
204 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
November, 1915.
To Miss H :
Just back from a two days' bat, for we had forty-eight
hours off, over Sunday and All Souls' day that followed. Did
not bat as royally as you did in the White Mountains, but still
enjoyed a little freedom which seemed extremely sweet as
a reaction from the state of quasi penal servitude in which we
live here at St.-Maixent. Four or five of us having no very
good reasons for going to Paris at this time of the year spent
the day at La Rochelle, New Rochelle, N. Y.'s mother, and the
once famous Huguenot stronghold. The old harbor is good
only for fishing boats now as it is filling in with sand, but it
is very picturesque with its two fourteenth century towers
guarding its entrance. The real harbor is three miles from
the center of the town. It is a brand-new one with all mod-
ern improvements. It was very busy as there were boats in
from South America unloading horses and an innocent looking
tank steamer from Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles was
being unloaded of its cargo by German war prisoners. Some
of the cargo was oil to be sure, but there were also a good many
boxes which any unbiased observer would have been tempted
to call ammunition cases rifles, cartridges. The boat had a
huge American flag painted on both sides of the bow and two
more astern. This evidently to pacify possible submarines.
In front of the city hall which is a very remarkable building
of the fifteenth and sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries,
there is a statue of the mayor who was in office when Richelieu
took the town. That statue was erected in part with money
subscribed in New Rochelle, N. Y. That mayor was a great
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 205
boy. When told that he would have to give up the keys of his
town he emphasized his refusal by hitting the marble table in
front of him with his dagger and making quite a dent in the
stone. We saw the table and the dent, so we know it was so.
206 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
November 7th, 1915.
Since last time I wrote, the Prime Minister has decided to
keep us here a month longer, so that we shan't get out of St.-
Maixent before December 15th, so that I may spend Christmas
with my brother. We may bat around Paris together in a
modest way or else around Lyons. That is worth looking for-
ward to though life is such a bore here that there are times
when I wish I could be anywhere except here. Still there were
two great doings this week. We fooled with hand grenades
and weeping-gases-shells. The latter are wonderful. They
fired 'a few cartridges at us while we were in a sham
trench. We did not expect it and all of a sudden we started
to sneeze and to cry our eyes ran brooks, and we had, just
had, to beat it, with our eyes shut and groping our way. The
other great doing was the giving of two or three croix de guerre
an occasion for which we were all gathered in our best finery
and the cavalry in the region was massed side of us. At about
the moment when the colonel was to start his speech, the soil
being soaked with rain and very slippery, the horse of one of
the captains fell all over himself, while the mount of another
of those gentlemen started to buck very stiffly like a wooden
horse mounted on wires. Our joy though silent was immense.
I'll tell you in secret that the army is made up largely of men
who are hoping and piously praying that something ridicu-
lous may happen to their betters.
Except for these little events, life is as dull as a rainy day
in the Warren House, Cambridge, Mass.
That makes me think of what you said about Grandgent
and his lecturing at the Sore Bone next winter. I promptly
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 207
wrote to him asking at what time he intended to be in Paris.
It would be a great treat to see some one from America. You
asked whether he was French. His father or his grandfather
came from France, but he himself is American born and pro-
tected by the Stars and Stripes.
What is going to happen in the Balkans! We don't begin
to have enough men out that way. That is probably why the
Cabinet went out of commission. We have made some terrible
blunders. The worst was in believing for months that Greece
and Roumania would never let Bulgaria loose on Servia.
We may even have supplied ammunition to those nations! We
are darn fools, but we are going to stick this fight out and
come out on top.
Two cards from you when you were at Williamstown.,
Went through the place years ago when I was still at Willis-
ton. Had gone up Greylock with my brother-in-law during;
Spring vacation and we got stuck in snow when on top of the
mountain. Western, Mass., is a beautiful part of the world.
It is at once pretty, as all well cultivated regions are, and there
is also enough of the wilderness left to make it mysterious.
I must write to my brother before they bugle us to bed.
Nine-thirty here, all lights out. Much more rigid than Smith,
College.
208 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
November 12th, 1915.
To Miss H :
Thank you ever so much for the letters and for the clippings.
Have not yet received the woollen things which you men-
tioned in your letter before the last. You may. be sure that
they will be welcome as we are pretty sure of having a rather
rough time of it this coming winter. There is some talk of
our being sent to Servia. It may be only talk, but on the other
hand there is nothing at all impossible in the matter. Yes,
there are such things as interpreting officers. But I am not
an officer yet and as for interpreters there are plenty of them.
Every business man who had dealings with London jumped
at the chance at the beginning and there are very few calls
now. As far as danger goes, it is always the same tobacco to
use a French idiom. A New York man who came about when
I did and who was in exactly my case went to the front as
interpreter with one of the American field hospitals in the
Verdun region, where the front makes a V with St. Mihiel
at the base well he was killed in March in front of his field
hospital. Interpreters who went to the Dardanelles must have
seen something, too. And for that matter, any one who gets
mixed up in such a business as this must not think too much
about what may happen. It's as useless as it is cowardly. I
could have been done away at least seven times last winter and
yet I came out O.K. I mean that that number of times there
was no very good reason why I was not banged up and many
others with me. It is no use thinking up schemes for going to
war safely. It's the ancient story of dancing and the pipers.
It is very necessary to dance in the present case. The stronger
Germany reveals itself, the more it becomes evident that life
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 209
with a victorious Germany would be very hard for any one,
anywhere on the planet and absolutely unbearable for any of
us whether in Europe or out in sunny California. It is very
fortunate, therefore, that there is no intention of giving up
the game on our part or on that of our pals. The Kaiser may
go to Constantinople if he wants to, that won't help him out
in the end though the trip may give him much personal
satisfaction.
Did I tell you that here at St.-Maixent, I have lost the record
for distance? One of us came back from Tiflis by way of
Moscow, Stockholm and Arkangel ! Another who was brought
up in San Francisco started for France from Yokohoma, where
he was in business a third, a banker was looking up oil
property in Wyoming at the time of the mobilization. The
first and the last of these three I met officially. Not so with
the third. One day last month, we were off on a day's trip.
It was as hot as pepper. We stopped at noon in a pasture to
cook our dinner and it was hotter than ever. Behind me there
was a man fighting with his kit, apparently trying to unstrap
a refractory pan, when to my amazement I heard the man say
in low but exceedingly wrathy voice and exactly as I quote
the following words "Will that ! ! ! !
- pan ever get off this kit!" It seemed very good to
hear straight from the shoulder American cussing. I sympa-
thized with him in your language and we have been friends
ever since. My apologies to your father.
Well, about four more weeks here. The chances are that
the war will not be over by then. Will send you the latest
from the front about Christmas time or New Year's. Wish I
did know from what part of the front though, but that's asking
too much.
210 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
St.-Maixent, November 13th, 1915.
No very great news. Life is as flat as a pancake and not
nearly as palatable. It's raining most of the time and the
work is a perpetual repetition of things we half know, but
which we shall never know much better. They would have
done well to send us away when they had said they would.
It does not pay to plan things one way and to carry them out
in some other manner.
One named Georges just stepped from desk to desk to cover
ground faster in the room where I am writing and incidentally
put his iron-shod foot on the left hand upper corner of this
letter. He sends his apologies so I don't start again.
To-morrow we are going to have a banquet those of us who
are in the same escouade. We have retained a small room in
a small hotel in town and after great deliberations and confabs
decided upon an elaborate menu. One of us is a man from
Lille. His house is burnt down and he has not seen his par-
ents since a year ago last August. He is an extraordinary chap
who had never been in the army before this year and who has
not been at the front. He is fat and always late. No matter
what we do he is the last one on hand. We have called him
Le Desespoir de VEscouade as we spend a good deal of time
getting him out of scrapes into which he innocently wanders
periodically, having brought all his civilian habits and ways
of viewing life into this military servitude which is now our lot.
What I started to say is that he has a very good mind for
everything that has nothing to do with our present business
and he has an endless Montmartre, Quartier Latin pas conven-
able repertoire. He will be our toastmaster to-morrow and
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 211
we expect huge things from him. To give you an idea of his
abilities, at odd moments, and in a casual way, he will take
two or three stools and balance them on the tip of his chin.
While in the room, fooling, he roars like the bull of Bashan,
but en the drill ground, when he has to command, his. voice
!s feeble and gentle as a girl's a mere quaver. When he is
off duty he can imitate to perfection the colonel's roar when
that deep-chested gentleman gives forth commands to the
whole battalion !
How long will the Dutch blow things up in the United
States? If they don't look out they will greatly facilitate Mr.
Roosevelt's election to the Presidency. Wilson's chances are
pretty feeble, I dare say.
Letters from Stanford tell me that they have a new president
out there. I don't know the gentleman and he does not know
me. I wonder how he will take my prolonged absence from
duty. He may be pro-German for all I know.
I am enclosing an unfinished proof of a group picture of my
fscouade taken by our Lille friend. Will send the finished
product in ten days or so as soon as I get it. Am sending
only a few heads.
212 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
November 21st, 1915.
This is going to be a short and foolish letter as life is made
up mainly of nothingness. One more week of the same stuff,
then the examinations, then La Fuite but that will be in three
weeks only when all things are added up.
Too bad for the ladies of E'astern America. Still you will
doubtlessly get the vote in a year or two. There is no reason
why you should not have it and merrily misgovern in co-opera-
tion with us men. Some things will be better attended to
with women voting, but some others may be worse off. When
you once have the vote, the hardest thing will remain to be;
accomplished, to-wit: to keep women interested enough in their
newly acquired right to think about it and use it. An extra-
ordinary proportion of men don't care about what is voted and
the same thing will be true of women unless they make a special
effort and a long continued one. Votes for women may at
worst be negative in the United States and it may be very good
because there is more freedom and more higher education among
American women than among their continental sisters. In
France, such an extension of the franchise would undoubtedly
bring about a deplorable Catholic, clerical reaction, one of the
most stifling things that might happen to our poor republic.
I don't believe that your country would lose very much
by having something of an armed force. The rich must be
strong, they must be willing to sacrifice something to remain
rich. If France were a poor country, the hungry Germans
who have grown too fast for their own good and for that of
their neighbors, would not be bothering us from Dunkerque
to Gallipoli. I don't believe that armies bring about war.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 213
If a man has a dollar he puts it in his pocket, if he has sev-
eral hundred he puts them in a reenforced concrete, iron-clad,
steel-rimmed, double-bottom bank and burglars immediately
surround the bank and get busy with dynamite and all kinds of
jimmies.
Yes, Marm, I was hit with that kind of a thing you de-
scribe, only it was not very big and came from a small shell,
or a bomb. One day, a few days before I got laid up, a pretty
big piece fell within ten feet of me and sizzled on the snow.
We called them les mouches, because as they whirl through
the air they make exactly the noise of a fly or beetle caught in
a bottle they buzz whereas the shell itself, before exploding
hisses.
We are not very brilliant in the Balkans from what leaks
out. Started too late, and with too few men. If Italy comes
in, something may be done for Servia and as long as we hold
the sea and as long as the Germans can do nothing more on
our front nor on that of Russia things are really not very
bad. The Kaiser can go to Constantinople and be d ed, that
will not free his towns of Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck, etc.,
etc., which are not doing very much business these days, praise
be. Are you really going to send us, at one and the same time,
Mr. Roosevelt and Grape Juice Bryan? The papers are an-
nouncing the coming of both each in his specialty.
From some newspaper clippings received there seems to be
in formation a German-American Party in the United States.
That may complete the discrediting of the Dutch in your coun-
try and my second country. So let Prof. Walz do his worst.
The German prisoners looked peaceful enough. They were
clean and fat. That's the second lot I have seen. They surely
are well treated and in no way overworked.
The details about our late attempt to do something in
Champagne made me think of Miss Addams's saying concern-
214 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
ing bayonet charges. We had some two hundred thousand
men charging at the same time over ground kicked up by shells.
Could that number of inebriated gentlemen go three miles
right ahead of them and mind their officers?
To-day we were told that the courses would be prolonged
to December 10th, so that with the examinations we shall
stay here until Christmas. It's good for us, but also depressing,
as the military school life is a frightful bore and a strain on
one's nervous system which I give up trying to describe.
There are rumors that we will be sent to Servia when we
come out but that's almost the logical rumor to spring up
at this time.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 215
From the Diary.
To speak only of the training received at Saint-Maixent, it
is just to say that we were made to do certain things very
well, but that we never had a chance to really learn how to
command. The manoeuvres, by ourselves or one company
against another, might be called attack of a wood, of a village,
retreat, march under artillery fire, etc., they always were about
the same thing. We went to some village five or six or eight
miles away, walking on the road, then we broke up into sec-
tions and marched on our objective taking as we went along less
and less vulnerable formations until we finally scattered as "sharp
shooters" and after shooting many blank cartridges, we stormed
the positions in question very brilliantly a la ba'ionnette.
The officers did practically all the commanding. We profited
by these manoeuvres mainly because we saw how individual sec-
tions kept their direction and kept in touch with their neigh-
bors even when very much subdivided. What we did by
ourselves was going off on patrols of all kinds. We fairly
stripped the skin off our hands in the course of those exercises
for the country about Saint-Maixent is one inextricable maze
of live hedges in which thorns and brambles of all varieties
intertwine into nets of great resistance.
The first of these manoeuvres lasted throughout the morn-
ing and the afternoon of one day. The weather was per-
fect; for six weeks we scarcely had a drop of rain and the
clearness and warmth compared with the best of California cli-
mate. Under such conditions, even when the work was very
rough which was the rule the mid-day rest was very pleas-
ant. We either cooked our meals in the open or else the field
kitchen supplied us with bouillon, boiled beef, steamed pota-
toes and hot coffee. We preferred to do our own cooking,
several of the men in our squad being first-class cooks and very
willing to work for the rest of us who simply helped by 1 cut-
216 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
ting wood, carrying water and peeling potatoes. Later in the
season the trips were made to extend over two days or part of
two days. We would leave in the afternoon or else be awak-
ened at two or three A. M. and thus do half of the walking
before sunrise. In one or two cases we were quartered in
villages. At Chevreux our presence was imposed upon a Pro-
testant family who gave us the free use of their kitchen, before
allowing us to retire to their hayloft and we spent a fine evening
listening to the songs and the stories of our official entertainer
B , called the squad's despair, because of his utter heed-
lessness in all things military.
We were less fortunate at Salles. Our hosts had a wretched
home, damp and poorly furnished. There were only women
in the house, the men being at the front. The mother at first
would not let us settle for the night in her kitchen. As it was
very cold the lieutenant made her take us in and, much to her
distress, we carried in enough straw and clover to make some-
thing of a bed on the stone floor. The poor woman was full of
bitterness. She thought that we were taking advantage of her
loneliness and made nothing out of the lieutenant's speech in
our defense in which he spoke of "tactical necessities" and other
matters that were Greek to her. Her great fear was that we
would be in her way in the morning and that she would not
be able to get breakfast ready for the farm hands. We knew
that we would be off before her time to awake had come, so
we did not worry very much about her distress. As it turned
out, by 4 A. M. we had replaced the straw on the stacks and
swept the kitchen, made our coffee and buckled our pack; she
came out of the living room just as we were starting on our
way to attack a detachment of cavalry stationed across the river.
That kitchen was strangely dingy and sombre. Jary re-
marked that it must have remained thus for centuries and that
we had before us the hearth of a Mediaeval Jacques. Two
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 217
small windows flush with the muddy yard let scanty light into
the cellar-like room. At the end there was a huge fireplace over
which swung a crane. There were a few pots scattered under
the flue. In the ashes two crickets chirped and chirped and
chirped. The floor was roughly pared. Such must have been
the home of Joan of Arc. This thought forced itself on my
mind as I looked at the oldest daughter. She was a girl of
sixteen who was born handless; the sorrow of her life had
given a strangely intelligent and wistful expression to her
delicate features.
218 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
December 4th, 1915.
To Miss H :
Some note of mine must have gone astray, for I am sure
that I have written during October or else letters will come
bunched, for, as you noticed, boats leave in bunches; probably
to facilitate their protection across the ocean. One or two
torpedo boats can take care of several liners which are only
a few hours apart. Please thank your brother very much indeed
for the wollen socks. They are fine. I have already tried
them one very cold night in the course of which we did fool
stunts in neighboring trenches dug especially for our educa-
tion. They keep one's feet as warm as toast. The socks, not
the trenches. All the examinations are over. The practical
test came last Monday. The written and the oral examina-
tions were to-day. No telling how I came through. Too
many things come in to make guessing possible age, a little
pull now and then, nerve, number of months spent at the front,
number of times wounded, etc. At any rate in two weeks we
will be out of here. We were to leave December 10th, but a
new move on the part of the War Secretary's office put off our
liberation from this kindergarten life until December 20th.
May yet spend Christmas with my brother.
My friend Allen B shipped me a fine Colt automatic
and a letter full of gentle reproaches. He thought that I had
gone in the army for good, giving up teaching. Can you think
of a more crazy idea?
Thank you very much for the clippings. They are always
very interesting. Yes, indeed, there is some difference between
the Massachusetts press and the Middle Western shrieking
sheets. The Middle West always made on me the same im-
Letters fro?n a Chasseur a Pied 219
pression as a very big, overgrown, uncouth and disagree&ble
boy. It will take a good licking, or several such, before it is
toned down. That doesn't mean war, of course. This, of
course, is being written during study time, since we know it
all and don't have to study now.
220
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
December 5th, 1915.
The papers announce to-day that your government has de-
manded of Wilhelmstrasse the immediate recall of von Pappen
and Boy-Ed. That's good, very good. It was high time that
the United States showed its teeth. The Germans have taken
advantage of your good faith and of your patience in a scan-
dalous way. It is pretty bad to have all the German professors
in the United States turn out to be political agents the Waltz,
the Munsterbergs & Co. Imagine Grandgent or Guerard or
any other gentle French professor touring the country to defend
the cause of the Allies. To be sure our cause does not need
to be defended so desperately.
Servia seems done for and we were fools not to send out
enough men in time to help that poor little country. On the
other hand, if we had sent men before the Germano-Bulgarian
attack, people out here, politicians rather, would have shrieked
that we were leaving the frontier undefended to launch into
hazardous adventures. Those same gentlemen are the ones who
now raise to the heavens scandalized and horrified hands at the
criminal hesitancy of our present masters.
But on the whole, things go pretty well. No one wants to
give up the fight and that is the main thing for the present.
We must last longer than they. Whether we cut through their
front or not or whether they go gallivanting to Constantinople
or remain at Monastir makes no great difference. They may
get, temporarily, a lot of fun out of those exercises, but it's
wearing fun.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 221
December 30th, 1915.
To Miss H- -:
Having travelled madly these last few weeks I have neither
sent nor received mail. Hope soon to have an address to which
letters, which must be accumulating at Valence, may be
forwarded.
I came out of St.-Maixent as a sergeant, but may be boosted
to an aspirantship soon, as I am now on my way to the front.
Same region where I was last year in spite of all they had told
us about going to other parts going to the same battalion,
also unexpected.
Will tell you about the front when I get there. It's more
honest than doing like war reporters. Just now I am almost
dropping from sleep, having ridden all night in a wheezy ac-
commodation train to get to the Vosges, whence I proceed
Rhineward by autobus.
As to-day is the 30th of December, I still have time to wish
you a Happy New Year, even though the letter will be a trifle
late in getting there.
222 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
January 1st, 1916.
To Dr. J- :
Back in Alsace after nearly a year's absence. To think that
when last leaving this valley, I sincerely thought that I would
be back in three or four weeks at the most.
Life out here is about the same. The same mud, the same
never ending lines of autos, pack mules and troops going up
and down the valley.
Last week, just before I came back, my battalion had a hard
time of it in the attacks against the German positions in the
Northeast. As a result we are now resting; may not go up
into the mountains for several days, a state of things to which
I do not at all object. While going from St.-Maixent to Paris
I saw Professor Grandgent, who is giving lectures at the
Sorbonne on Dante, and also on phonetics. He gave me the
most useful and interesting information concerning the state
of public opinion in America.
Spring will soon be here and the war is not yet ended, nor
even is the end in sight. If my long continued absence works
injustice to anyone, please do not hesitate to consider my con-
tract with Stanford ended. I wish for nothing more earnestly
than to return to Stanford and take up my work there once
more, but I realize that a leave of absence prolonged over three
years may not be the best thing for the department, and I want
you to feel sure that if you wish to give me a permanent suc-
cessor, I shall understand the justice of the step perfectly well.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 223
January 6th, 1915.
No very huge news. We are waiting for more men and
not doing much in the meanwhile. My main occupation is to
get used again to mud and straw. As for food, the valley is
much better than last year. We can buy all manners of cheeses
as well as fish, oysters, and glory of all French culinary art,
snails ! Had snails to-night with parsley ; also mushrooms and
rognons sautes. Will be broke soon.
Even being a sergeant is much better than being a private.
Much more freedom if a little responsibility. My captain is
a boy twenty-three years old. Very capable, a born leader.
The kind I should like Americans to know about. Which
does not mean that there are not many of the other kind. May.
the censors overlook this line.
No mail at all as yet. Can't expect to get any for several
days yet. it's very long to get connected again with the real
world. My first mail ought to be a monster as my brother
must have hoarded many epistles since I left Valence.
On clear days, the Dutch send us a few shells night and day.
They aim at us, but they hit anything. The schoolhouse a few
days ago, with some children badly scared and a teacher killed.
We probably won't go any nearer to them than we now are
for a week or more. We may be kept thus resting.
Well, will try to write real news later. For the present
good luck and many best wishes.
224 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
To Mr. G :
If I pull out of this long drawn out scrape, I shall have,
gained one inestimable thing, absolute faith in the soundness of
our race. How utterly ridiculous the decadence yarn seems,
in the face of facts, of deeds. When the Germans attack us
they are often drunk as drunk can be; they howl and shriek;
they come in hordes. Our men go at it in the full control of
their faculties and without the imperious need of feeling the
comforting touch of the elbows of neighbors. By the way, I
may add that we have only one kind of bullet and that we don't
turn them in the cap so that the big end may hit first and
tear worse. It is a common thing to find German chargeurs
with every bullet turned.
Thank you I have plenty to read. We are quartered in a
schoolhouse. I have been delighted to learn that every progress
which in the last twenty years or more has blessed the human
race has been due directly to the genius of the present Emperor
of Germany. Also a very dear old aunt of mine keeps send-
ing me small editions of the Gospels slipped in between tablets
of chocolate and boxes of crackers.
I wish your nerves stayed where they belong. You are in.
the right place where you are now. If you had left your fam-
ily you would have been a damnable coward. Your usefulness
back of a pine tree or in the mud of a trench would have been,
even more "infinitesimal" than it is now in a country which is
in danger of being run off its common sense by a wave of mili-
tarism at any time, and where men capable of setting an issue
with absolute clearness are not too numerous. I see why you
feel badly, but I am decidedly glad that you are tied down.
This is a crude way of putting things. Don't keep it against
me. The thought is sound, I believe, even if the form is poor.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 225
January 11, 1916.
No great news. We are up in the hills watching the Dutch
who fire shells at us and we fire some at them. We wear fine
steel helmets which give us a mediaeval air. Will have myself
photographed with my new headgear at the first opportunity.
I must look very picturesque it comes down to my ears and
may give me a Bowery air. We also go about with little bags
around our necks. They contain each a mask against gases.
War grows more and more complicated and ugly.
I live in idleness, having two corporals who boss the men as
I tell them to. I am free to come and go through the woods
a big change from last year when I was always glued to the
same spot.
We are having snow, rain, fog and wind all at the same time
but we can build fires.
Hope to get a letter from you soon. Our mail is again dis-
organized only a card from Kansas.
226 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
The Back Woods, January 18th, 1916.
To Mr. G :
Once more in the mountains of our long lost province, in the
very region where we were a year ago. After a year's absence
there are but a few changes to be noticed some pleasant, some
otherwise. In the valley, the stores are now full of all good
things from steak to oysters and snails. One no longer has to
stand in line once a week to snatch a half pound of chocolate
at the arrival of the necessary ox-cart bringing supplies to the
one store. On the other hand the valley towns are shelled at
night ; they were not last year. This shelling is hideous, thrown
perfectly at random. In the last village where we were quar-
tered a shell fell in the schoolhouse children injured, teacher
killed. Once in a great while a chasseur is hurt; nearly each
time civilians are the victims. A little girl had her leg severed.
She insisted on having it buried in the military graveyard so
that she might carry flowers to the grave later. For the last
ten days we have been in the mountains occupying various posi-
tions in second line as the battalion is not complete, having
participated in the last fight on the too famous kopf. I came
the day after the fight ended, so I saw nothing of it, for which
I am not very sorry. It seems to have been botched in style.
Life is easier than last year. The weather is very mild and
the authorities have at last hit on a type of plank house which
is very satisfactory. They can hold a section, have two stoves
and are water-tight. All can lie down at night and the straw
is dry also the straw is changed fairly often. As for the lines
they are about where they were, only it's no longer possible to
go off on patrol duty; everywhere they are a few scores of
feet apart. As a sergeant I am leading a parasitic existence,
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 227
watching my half section work, doing nothing myself. I get
into trouble periodically with my immediate chiefs who really
are boys, and I have not given up all hope of being retrograded
one of these days. In the meanwhile I practice as honestly
as possible the kind of imposture implied by any command in
this d business.
The spirit of the men seems to me better than it was last
year at this time. They play cards at night and sing. The
spirit of the regular army does not rule as it did last year and
that may account for the diminution of gloom also, to be sure,
war as a life condition is taken more or less asi the normal
thing by men who are in it for from eight to ten or twelve
months on an average and who have been wounded two or
three times apiece.
If there is any call for volunteers for Suez, I shall speak up.
228 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
January 19th, 1916.
The British captain who wrote in the November Atlantic
Monthly strangely exaggerated the value of life in war time
to the average man. He sees in it a dipping into real life, life
next to nature of a mass of men who lived a few months agoi
either cramped or selfish lives. He does not realize that the
private's life when there is no fighting is dull and purposeless.
The physical labor, the tasks imposed are often as bootless as
the construction of a fleet of ships by the Roman Army spoken
of by Montesquieu; ninety per cent, of the work done is use-
less or so badly done as to become useless.
20th of January, 1916
The captain told me that to his surprise I was doing well with
my men and that contrary to his expectation I had the making
of an officer in me. Flattering. He is twenty- three years old.
The men know it and they work to humor us. It is really
extremely funny to watch carpenters, farmers, mechanics, being
bossed by officers who are innocent of any mechanical training.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 229
January 25th, 1916.
To Miss H :
Thank you for the letters and the many clippings which
are always very interesting. It is fine to keep in touch with
the American opinion. Nothing much doing out here. A few
days after I joined the battalion we were sent up in the moun-
tain and for the last three weeks we have been leading the
life of the lumber man. We are in the back woods living in
houses that remind me of the New Hampshire and Maine log
houses. We spend our time digging artillery shelters, but are
ready to leave at a minute's notice if there is trouble in the\
neighborhood. So far no trouble at all. A few shells fired
at random by the Dutch blow up on the road below; a fewj
aeros buzz overhead on clear days and try to see what we are
at. It is not very exciting thank goodness.
I have a very friendly and quiet gang of men to boss. Bossing
is the biggest imposture; even I spend whole days doing abso-
lutely nothing except chat with this or that man who stops
digging or sawing wood for a minute.
In a few days we may go up to the trenches or go back to
the valley. All is very indefinite. We are much more com-
fortable here than in the town where we were before, as said
town was being bombarded every day. One day a shell fell
in a school house, wounding several children and killing the
teacher. If that's war! . . . The sick and wounded were
carried away up to last week by Harvard and Yale men, run-
ning little Ford autos. A fairly risky business, since several
places on the road are bombarded. One of those American,
boys was killed this month; another wounded. I had quite a
230
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
chat with several of them. The socks sent by your brother
are very useful out here as you may imagine. It was pretty
cold for a while ; now nearly all the snow is melted ! The
winter will set in again in February and March probably.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 231
February 10th, 1916.
To B- -:
Nothing very new. Am writing to you at 3 P. M. by candle-
light, being in a hole that is about ten feet below the level oil
the ground. I sleep in another hole about twenty-five feet
below the level. We don't do much. We watch and dig and
get bombarded they pour or rain shells on our hill for half an
hour two or three times a day the rest of the time is serene.
In our holes we fear nothing only it is time we went back to
some village. It's over a month now since we have been in
a town and we are in great need of getting next to civilization.
We have seen this treeless hill enough.
232 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
February 19th, 1916.
To M :
The blanket, which is my door, was pushed aside a few
minutes ago and your letter was handed to me. You bet I
was glad to know about Louise or Robert as the case may be
and about the young Virginian. Great-uncle and godfather
all at once. Well, there is something cheerful to reflect about
indefinitely.
You would be interested to see the place from which I am
writing this. It's a shack roofed over with tree trunks and rocks.
It's about seven feet and three feet to the ceiling. It opens right
on the trench, which is as far from that of the Dutch as the
Brooklyn house is from that across the two back-yards. Three
sleep while three watch. My business is to see that they don't
sleep while out of the shack, that they look over enough to see,
but not enough to be seen. It's bright moonlight and there is
snow on the ground, so the matter must be looked out
for. This is the third or fourth time I take up this letter. I
may add that we are on top of the long-named hill which ends
with the Dutch for head and which has appeared so often in
the papers. A year ago it was a finely forested little mountain
(2,700 feet) overlooking the valley. Now there is not one
whole tree on it; a few stumps only and those full of holes
and shaky. The rocks kicked up by last year's shelling show
everywhere. We have been here for three weeks, but there is
nothing much doing just watching and watching. It is now
nearly a month and a half since we have been in town or any-
where near one and a trip down begins to look attractive. We
expect to be relieved in a week or ten days.
Yes, it would be idiotic for the United States to start arming
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 233
madly. You had enough of a navy to fight this time had you
wanted to. I don't see how any sane man can talk invasion after
the examples of Gallipoli, Cattaro, the march to Calais, etc.
If you ever have to fight it will be with Canada or Mexico;
fight on land, I mean. Stories of Japs in California landing hun-
dreds of thousands of men in San Francisco, etc., are idiotic.
With a good fleet, the United States ought to be able to steer
clear of militarism as easily as England has done so far. But
you must be strong on the water, because you are so very rich.
Your main problem now should be to make Americans out of
all the damned foreigners on your shores and back country.
You may send this to Wilson if you see fit.
Writing is often a difficult enterprise nowadays, so don't be
hurt or inquiete if you do not hear from me very regularly.
234 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
From the Diary
February 22nd, 1916.
Skyrockets were fired, but the Germans did not notice the
disturbance and we received no shells.
The troops in front of us must have been changed, for they
fired few shots and no grenades they popped thefr heads inno-
cently over their loopholes and gave other signs of trust and
joviality unknown to date.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 235
From the Diary.
February 23d.
Two nights I spent over an hour with men on the parapet
placing chevaux de frise and never was fired on once, though
we must have been heard working in each case. Still all was not
rosy. The Germans talked so much and so loud that a fool
corporal requisitioned the interpreter a fine, brave Alsatian
boy, twentv years old, who came up to listen. He heard, of
course, nothing but futilities schnell! schnell! by two who were
placing wire then the illuminating statement, "We were bet-
ter off where we were last week than we are now." The boy,
eager to hear more and to see more clearly, finally climbed on
the ladder until his head and shoulders were in full view over
the parapet he then received a bullet in the cheek which killed
him instantly. What a price to pay for such a result! That
boy was from the region; he had run away at the time he
ended his first year in the German army, and enlisted in the
French army.
236 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
February 26th.
Peaceful day and night close to our new and unobtrusive
friends across the way.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 237
Translated.
February 27th, 1916.
To A -:
You must think that I am sadly neglecting my correspon-
dence and it is true but dear me, under the circumstances.
We have been for nearly seven weeks in the mountain and
the longer it lasts, the less enjoyable it is, for in the Vosges, Feb-
ruary and March are accompanied by sudden storms of snow,
rain and wind. Moreover, as we are on the firing line we are
always eight where there is only room for six. A move is as
complicated as in the game of chess.
If I am able to write to you now, it is because our section
is on duty; half the men are at the loopholes 'and the rest
are asleep. Even then I am partly sitting on one of the cor-
porals. As it is almost always like this, do not wonder if you
do not hear from me as often as when we used to have a rest
more frequently. We were to be relieved from duty this week
and we were looking forward to going down into the valley,
but how could we go now? With what is going on at Verdun
there is no possibility of a let up for us. We have to bear it
patiently.
Good news from our brother, who keeps sending me weekly
packages which are very welcome, of course, for our mountain
sector is very quiet, a most remarkable thing in these days.
Explain to our Brooklyn family my apparent lack of feeling.
238 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Translated
March 6th, 1916.
To Mr. G -:
For the last half hour I have been searching for your letter
in all the pockets of my cloak (for since very recently cloaks
have pockets), but I cannot find it, and I shall not be able to
answer your questions in the regular order.
Do not for a moment think that I have had any misgivings
concerning either the interest your family takes in me or the
friendship you have for me. Often it is very difficult to write
either because life, on account of an over-accumulation of hor-
rors, pales on one, or because the conditions of daily life make it
possible to write just one postal card and no more but the idea
of sending a postal card way out to Texas seems a trifle
ridiculous.
No, I do not hate wholesale fashion. I even believe that
I do not hate at all in the literal sense of the word. If on a
fine night when crossing the campus on my way back from Palo
Alto, I should encounter a hold-up man, thrusting his revolver
at me, I should do my best to smash his face, but once the
deed was accomplished, I should be perfectly willing to have
him taken at my expense to the Peninsular Hospital. It is
the kind of feeling I have when fighting the Boches. Against
the Boches taken singly, I have no grudge, but I am perfectly
determined not to allow my linguistic and idealistic family
group to be swallowed up by theirs, which at the present time
is certainly far from showing moral superiority. Have you read
Above the Strife, by Remain Rolland? I have not, but the
title appeals to me and the author has been attacked so unani-
mously by the most sensational newspapers that I dare say he
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 239
must have voiced some kind of truth in a vigorous manner.
The Boches, however, are disconcerting to a degree when it
comes to knavery and fanaticism. Well, what I ask of you is
not to consider me as a blind monster, for it is not with joy that
I put my ringer on the trigger but I go through with that mo-
tion, whether I like it or not, and I shall continue to do so. It is
a disgusting job, but it has to be done so help me God! if
in so doing I incur everlasting condemnation.
I have had the luck to join a company under command of
a young captain who is really a fine man and life is very dif-
ferent from what it was last year. For the last thirty-seven
days we have been on the top of the worst one of the Alsatian
Kopfs, and we cannot hope to be relieved as long as the fight
is so fierce around Verdun. After all, our worst troubles here
come from the cold, the snow and vermin ; we are literally
eaten up but the shelling is infrequent and of short duration,
while from the Swiss frontier the roaring of cannon never
stops.
This furious German attack on Verdun was launched very
early in the season. Let us hope that the meaning of it is
that our enemies are yearning to come to a conclusion. If such
is the case, and if they cannot take Verdun, they may soon
reach the end of their tether. Their rulers will not have a leg
to stand on and possibly we may see the end of the war before
next winter.
If you have interesting articles, do send them to me. Quite
often I have time to read at night and I am yearning for in-
tellectual food.
240 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
From the Diary.
March 7th, 1916.
Had dinner with the captain who was very kind ate eggs,
ye gods! Talked of America and of the men. He is a very
altruistic man thinks a great deal of what he can do to help
his men keep up their courage, makes a definite effort to know
each one individually and the troubles of each.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 241
March 10th, 1916.
Galvin, alias "Turned up Nose" (Nez en I' air) was killed;
he was not on duty. Was very nervous, ran around the trench,
wanted to use firecrackers and hand grenades then sud-
denly he dashed to the sentry's post, and ran up the ladder.
The corporal rushed to get him down and got there in time
to receive his body the boy had received a bullet full in the
head.
242 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
March 13, 1916.
To Miss H- -:
Your Mass. Central letter came to-night eighteen degrees
makes one thoughtful or grateful that no such temperatures
occur in this part of the world, for under the circumstances
we would be up against it; still we have been having pretty
mean weather, snow for days and days, regular blizzards, but
without the very low temperature which accompanies these
"feasts" in dear "old" New England. We are still on the
top of our long-winded named Kopf and are wondering whether
we shall ever come down. To-morrow will be the forty-third
day spent here in close proximity to our friends the Dutch, very
close proximity, since we can and do throw hand grenades
at one another, and it will be the fifty-eighth day since we left
the valley or have been in any town. We do not complain,
however, because this apparently undue prolongation of service
is the result of the fighting which is now raging around the
best fortified part of our front and that fighting may be the
beginning of the end, for it's clear that the Dutch are suffering
losses out of all proportion with their ground gains. Their
attacking with so much determination at this time of the year
was a big surprise to everybody. It looks now as if all the)
Oriental moves had been but a bluff and a foil, and as if the
finish would be on our front after all. Personally, I am having
a pretty good time as one of the lieutenants is away just now
and I have taken his place, being in charge of a section, that
is one-quarter of the company. It is pretty good sport and
gives one a little additional freedom if there is such a thing
as freedom in this infernal business. Except for hand gren-
ades and little bombardments on clear days, life has been rather
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 243
eventless. We did have one scandal. A man was taken sick.
He was sent to the hospital from which he ran away, dis-
appearing completely from sight then turning up again. He
had just wanted a few days to get married and had taken
them. Of course, he now faces court-martial for desertion,
and the joke of it is that he won the war cross for bravery last
summer. This afternoon, there was quite a serious bombard-
ment for a half-hour or so. I went out to see if everybody was
on hand and I found the chap in question comfortably settled
at his post writing a letter, using the bottom of his loophole as
a table! Another case of court-martial, if I "peached" on
him, for sentinels are not placed in the ditch for the purpose
of cheering lately acquired wives by mail. The chap is
twenty-one and a case! One can't get away from America.
I am writing to you from an underground room about ten
feet below the level we have a nice stove and berths ar-
ranged like those of a ship. Behind the stove I have just spot-
ted a tin can Napla, Cal. California Fruit Co. St.-Helena
brand of canned peaches The Best! We used to go on bats
to Napa and St.-Helena from Stanford. My sister sent me
once the Review of Reviews and a few days ago Current
Opinion. Ye gods, but the Germans hold your press well in
hand. About every article contains an insinuation against us
and those which are in any way material for condemnation
of German methods are hidden away in the advertising matter!
Pretty clever. Are you going to fight Mexico? It looks a
little bit like it. This is a rambling letter, but as it is being)
written between 3 and 4 A. M., please excuse me.
244 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
March 14th, 1916.
A word to assure you that all is well in the best of worlds
and that the Dutch don't seem to have taken Verdun and that
we are still on our mountain but that we may be relieved soon
by another battalion. It will be high time. Men ought not
to be made to live like cave-dwellers much more than two
months winter months at that. The weather is quite pleas-
ant in the middle of the day now, quite warm, but our sun.
baths are spoiled by the actions of the Dutch who bombard
us every clear day. Such is life in war time not much of a
life, believe me.
One of the lieutenants is still away so I am bossing his sec-
tion, being grand commander in chief of one quarter of the
company. Not very hard work either, at least at present.
It was not at Monterey that I used to gaze upon Bohemian
life, but at Carmel-by-the-Sea near Monterey a very pretty
place full of scandals.
This is merely a note telling you that all is well and not
a letter hope to be able to write one soon, if we get back to
the valley. Have completely lost the habit of writing, or eat-
ing at a table as well as that of sleeping in a bed.
My sister Brooklyn sent me the Review of Reviews once,
and lately Current Opinion. Very interesting, in reading the
articles, to see where German money comes in giving facts and
conclusions a pro-Dutch twist sans avoir I'air d'y toucher.
I blushed, violently, reading your compliments on my un-
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 245
militarized handwriting thank you, as I should never for-
give myself were I to become really and truly militarized.
Have been able to order canned jam and condensed milk,
so am living like a prince hot milk chocolate at 2 A. M. when
on duty!
246 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
March 22, 1916.
To Miss H- :
I am writing to you in a sort of hut, six feet by six in!
which we are four. We are about forty feet from the Dutch
whom we can hear cough and putter around. We are hoping
they all get bronchitis. We have been bombarded very vio-
lently two or three times, but otherwise life is uneventful. We
look at the Dutch with a periscope they do the same to us.
It's now five weeks since we have been in a town and we "need
washing." Hope to go down next week, but can never be
sure of anything.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 247
March 24, 1916.
To B- -:
When did I write to you last? Impossible to tell as days
in the trenches are all alike equally blank. The one great topic
of discussion which never fails to arouse interest is concerning
what day of the week one is on. You, being only a civilian,
can have no idea of the sameness of things existing in war time.
Now we are in a village, the first time in nearly three months,
and out of that time we spent fifty-three days in the trenches,
which really is too much.
Our leaving the H kopf was fortunately quite un-
eventful. The Dutch must have suspected something, for they
bombarded fiercely the day and the night before and at noon on
the day itself, but as we started down at 6 in the evening, we
slipped between the showers, as it were, and came out on the
other side of the range without any losses. We had to go it
all night long to get here, but we did not object as this town
is sheltered from artillery fire and we live here peaceful as
shepherds. To be sure it's pouring great guns, but we have
real houses to live in instead of leaky shacks and we are so,
glad to have several complete nights' sleep ahead of us that
we don't mind the weather.
We may be here two or three weeks. The only cloud in
the sky, speaking very metaphorically, is that we are being
inoculated once more against typhoid and we are consequently
under the weather.
My lieutenant has not yet returned, so I am still in charge
of my section. The main work is to get new shoes, trousers
and neckties for all those who are really too shabby. I feel as
if I were dealing in ready-made clothing.
248 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
March 25th, 1916.
To Miss H :
At last in the valley and living nearly like a white man after
two months spent in the hills and in close proximity to the
Dutch. It is a fine sensation to be able to walk straight on a
road after weeks of worming one's self in and out of crooked,
narrow trenches covered over with logs placed so low that you
can't stand upright. We are in a very pretty hill town, quite clean
and containing a good many friendly inhabitants. For a won-
der I was able to get hold of a room containing a real bed. We
also have a dining room in a house and the use of a kitchen.
In other words we live like kings. This cheerful state of affairs
will last until the middle of April, at which date we may be
expected to go back to call on the Dutch.
The trouble around Verdun seems to be over with or nearly
so. It is a great relief to us to have proved that they can't
walk over us at will, as they did over Russia for a time and
over the Oriental parts of the front. It looks now as if the
time had come for them to stop sacrificing their men ruth-
lessly. They can't afford to attack again as they just have
and without results.
Thank you for the many clippings which I read with much
pleasure.
Blizzard time must be over even in New England. Over
here the fields are already beautifully green.
The cook has come to set the table, so I must quit. This is
just a note to tell you that all is well.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 249
From the Diary.
April 3d, 1916.
One of our men took me to the farm where he and the
liaison were quartered last summer most cordial greeting by
six little children the youngest, five years old, disappeared in
the dark bedroom and sang (??) La Marseillaise. Very
friendly people reminding me of the three women of Neu-
hauser near Goldbach.
250
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
April 10th, 1916.
Drill in the morning, then a sudden announcement: there
would be a review by the president of the Republic and we
were expected to decorate the village in style hence hecatomb
of firs and pines of Christmas tree size great harvesting of
moss and yellow flowers, hunting up of flags and banners to be
put up at the Mayor's house result superb.
While at attention before the cock of the walk, the visiting
officers saying "splendid battalion, "elite battalion," Poincare
said nothing at all, according to his manner as in the Bussang
hospital. Franchet d'Esperet was there a fine, tall, white-
haired man.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 251
April, 1916.
The woman who has a little store next to Lion d'Or is a re-
fugee from Thann. A bullet went through the upper story of
her house, then one through the lower floor, then one in the
cellar. She found the head of one of the children in the gar-
den. She told me about it in a monotonous tone of voice, but
at the end, "Sir, it is too much, you know, sir; it is too much,
it is too much." And these simple words told me more than
if she had been a trained speaker and reciter.
April llth, 1916.
In the morning, sham attack and in the afternoon grand
review and parade before a Servian Prince and a Servian gen-
eral, two enormous big fellows with coal black whiskers, our
Major who is not a dwarf looked like a mite before them but
a pretty spunky and wiry mite.
252
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
April 12th, 1916.
In the evening I went upstairs at the Golden Lion and had
a talk with an English ambulance driver very friendly we
complimented each other on our respective nations, then he
drew an illustrated postcard made to order representing a
lady in Eve's blameless costume on the back of the card was
the following message which my British friend, with his lim-
ited knowledge of French, had been unable to translate. "Mon
shery chtai envoye un koli de un kilo yapa gran shoz dedans
parsque pour un kilo on peu pa si tu veut quelque shose depplus
dilmoi ta cherie."*
* Deary, I have sent you a two-pound package ; there is not much
in it, because in a two-pound package, you cannot put much. If you
want something more, tell me so.
YOUR DEAR ONE.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 253
Translated.
April 24th, 1915.
To A :
Nothing new here. Out of the three weeks I have to spend
at Military Headquarters, one is over. We are left very much
to ourselves, I assure you, and life here has nothing in common
with the wild and dishevelled existence we were made to lead
at St.-Maixent, a place which has left in my mind the most
unpleasant memories. I am studying new things and I hear
other things which I have heard a great many times, but on the
whole the work is interesting and well supervised by people
who know their business. Moreover, I enjoy my three meals
and my beautiful room in a way which might lead the casual
observer to believe that your brother has sunk into a deep-
rooted and remorseless materialism. The truth is that I am
making up for lost opportunities and I distrust the future more
than I can tell. Now, this excellent Wilson seems to be
speaking plainly and firmly. Perhaps it is high time he should
do it, but, of course, he has had and he still has on his hands
a very complicated situation. It is what I am doing my best
to explain to our country-people who, in spite of Red Cross
ambulances, hospitals and even volunteers from far beyond the
sea are tempted to believe that in the United States there is an
overwhelming feeling in favor of the Teutons. "C'est tout
boche," a judgment which is rather summary. Do you re-
member one of my Williston boys named Henderson? He en-
listed in a Canadian unit and the poor boy was killed at Loos.
254 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
May 2d, 1916.
To A :
The less one has to do the less one does, that is why I did
not write to you last Sunday since I live as a citizen and as a
Christian in this happy valley I have entirely neglected my
correspondence.
The day before yesterday I dined in great style, having been
invited by the Protestant chaplain to whom our cousin had
recommended me. From a theological point of view, we might
have divergences of opinion, but nevertheless we spent an hour
together talking very pleasantly at least from my own point
of view. He is an excellent man, very courteous and gentle
qualities which do not keep him from appearing in first line
trenches whenever he is not in the hospitals.
We are working here very peacefully; our courses will last
one week longer; after that time there is a possibility that we
may be sent to third line trenches for a while.
From the Diary.
Call by the Protestant army chaplain for the division all
churchmen seem to expect a great change in the hearts of men
after the war they see an excuse for the war in the future re-
form and conversion of the individual. For my part, I don't
believe very much in it. The intellectual elite will see things
more clearly and modify the leadership of nations. The masses,
once the suffering and hardship forgotten, will live much as
before.
The captain, speaking of the wreath bought for Gallieni,
said that he would prefer fifty francs' worth of mass !
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 255
May 7, 1916.
To B :
No mail from America this week. Letters from across the
ocean come in bunches of six or eight to the amazement of the
mail man and to the scandal of all my companions; then days
follow quite newsless. That shows that there are not so many
boats gadding about as in peace time. As my captain fre-
quently remarks we too often forget that the war is still on
but then he should not worry too much as there are frequent
and powerful reminders of the real nature of life these days.
Nothing much going on here. The lectures are over this
sounds like Harvard or Bridgewater days and we expect to
go back to the hills Tuesday next or Wednesday, hills not of
the vacation variety, but full of trenches, without trees, leaves,
or flowers. The three weeks just spent in the valley have been
an oasis of comfort and quiet, but I don't object to going back
with the battalion. I am interested to see what life in the
trenches is like in good weather. I have always seen them when
the days were short and cold and forever threatening snow or
rain and there always w;as a lot of mud, a very important factor
of demoralization. Cold feet in the physical sense create the
moral cold feet of American slang.
256
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
May 15th, 1916.
To Miss H :
Your April 20th came almost together with its predecessor,
from which can be judged that the mail steamers had an un-
certain and incoherent existence. Thank you very much for
the news and for the clippings and most of all for the letters
which are always very, very pleasant messages.
The Diary of Evolution is awfully funny where is it taken
from?
I have now been back to the front for a week. It is not
the real front either, but about third lines where our business
deals mainly with the pick and the shovel. If we did not get
a few shells once in a while we might think ourselves at a camp
of instruction miles from the front. I get so bored watching
men work that I have taken to the shovel and fill gabions for
a pastime. We work from 3 A. M. until noon, resting the
balance of the day. 3 A. M. ! Think of the sacrifice to one's
country. I who never could make any of the breakfasts on
time either at Bridgewater, Williston, Harvard or Stanford.
War does bring out the heroic in one.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 257
May 26, 1916.
Late again in my correspondence this due to the fact that
we left our mountain fastness two days ago and that such
operations always take time before and after before to get
ready, after to get over the effect of the effort.
My lieutenant has again gone off and I am taking his place,
which is all right in its way, but as it happens, my turn for
a ten days' trip furlough comes to-morrow and I can't go.
Had a pow-wow with the captain and I shall go in the middle
of next week if nothing happens. Think of getting a look into
the interior of the country! In a way I am glad it was put
off as this has given me a chance to tell my brother of my com-
ing. Now I am sure to find him in Valence.
We are in a pretty good village. Since I do the work of a
lieutenant, I got busy and found a room rather the room was
all found when I got here. The cook of my section is my
friend. Those gentlemen, of course, come into a place before
their body of troops so that the first meal may be ready when
it comes down hungry and tired. Well, my cook got busy
and hunted me a room without my having asked him anything
at all. Pretty good of him.
We are now just getting over our stay in the hills that is
getting new clothes, etc. A great business getting everybody
satisfied. After the war, I'll make a first-class dry goods clerk.
This is not much of a letter, but I will write again from,
Valence if I get there next week as I hope.
P. S. Do my letters get to you stamped? I don't stamp
them any more as the vaguemestre has told me over and over
again that I did not have to, and he seemed hurt every time
I did.
258 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
June 4th, 1916.
To Miss H :
Just a few words to thank you for the Life's, which were
really very good and refreshing and more for the letters. Have
had difficulty in writing of late because we have moved so
much and I had again a lieutenant's job. Much to my sur-
prise I was granted the fourteen days off which the nation had
been owing me for sometime back. I left the front May 31st
and have been travelling ever since and looking up relatives.
This is the end of the trip the most extreme point I mean.
I am here with my brother getting a dip into city atmosphere
before going back to the pine hills of the Vosges where I am,
due June 9th. Don't know just where I shall find my bat-
talion as it has been travelling of late.
Marseilles is full of life. In addition to the usual rush of
trade there are the many colored troops Australians, Senega-
lese, English, Servians. Have not seen any Russians yet. The
coast is beautiful as beautiful as any Carmel-by-the-Sea or any
other Californian locality and it's the same kind of beauty.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 259
Grand Hotel de la Paste
Marseille
June 4th, 1916.
You may be wondering what has become of me as a person,
and as a correspondent. Got my furlough signed and my bag
packed May 31st in the morning and left the Valley of thej
Thun just as the battalion was also leaving probably for the
Munster Colmar region, where I shall be by the time this let-?
ter reaches you if I am not somewhere else. Things are mov-
ing rather fast in the military world these days. For the
present I am enjoying life. Have looked up and investigated,
all the relatives in the Rhone valley. Just now I am in
Marseilles on a bat pure and simple. Am going back to
Besangon and the mountains and the Dutch by the end of thq
week.
You will excuse me if I don't write more at length, as I am
having a great time getting a plunge into urban and civilized
life. It seems awfully queer to see with your own eyes how nor-
mally the other half lives.
Good bye for the present Had never written to you from
this country so far a new record.
260
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
From the Diary.
June 9th, 1916.
Roussel was killed yesterday with ten others in a cagna.
One shell did it. Day spent in getting straightened out the
sector is a maze with German lines above and below. Mean
sandy ground, sapes not very safe can be shelled from all di-
rections.
We have pioneers with us who direct the work a great im-
provement over past conditions when school teachers, business
men, watchmakers tried their hands at the mining job and were
the laughing-stock of the farmers and laborers. This place
is all sand on rotten granite. The trenches are braced with
planks all along the front. In the rear there are constant slides*
bags filled with dirt tumbling down at the least provocation.
A fine view down the valley, except for the three villages rid-
dled with shots. Patrols are possible in places. They came to
our wires a few days ago and placed a poster telling about the>
great German naval victory. We placed another in their wires,
telling them what is what and more in French and German.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 261
June 12th, 1916.
It is an age since I have written you or anybody else a real
letter having indulged in cartes-lettres in a shameless fashion.
Que voulez-vous, cest la guerre and I have been moving around
a good deal. First they moved us from the trenches to the
valley, then from the valley the battalion moved to another val-
ley, while I quietly beat it to France on a six days' furlough as
already stated, and those six days allowed me to beat it all
over the Saone, Doubs and Rhone valleys. My brother and
I looked up all possible relatives and ended by a bachelor bat
in Marseilles very convenable.
Coming back was a little sad as the more one sees of civilian
life, the more it looks preferable to the military mode of
living, especially in war time.
After going over mountains which are all unknown coun-
tries to you 1 caught my battalion settled in this sector, a queer set
of trenches all mixed up, where you would think that the lines
were two threads from two spools with which a kitten had been
playing. The Dutch are in front and above and on both sides,
in places and we go all around them in other spots. We see
all their ditches and they see ours, but as there is nothing which
they can do us which we can't do them and vice versa we re-
main in a state of watchful waiting which, as you know, is a
perfectly safe occupation. You have asked once or twice about
the fighting in the Vosges reported in the papers. There have
been one or two scraps through the winter but not where I
was, or at least we never had anything beyond bombardments
and it's probably all we shall ever get up this way. There is
nothing to be gained by us or by them in these mountains. If
262 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
there is anything done it will be in the flat country, where
artillery can do its damnedest not swearing, but a truthful
statement. There are vague rumors that we may be sent to
other parts, but it's pretty vague.
You also asked me about my Spanish friend, de A .*
Not a word from him. Our parting, you may remember, was
stormy. He got into trouble with a recently acquired brother-
in-law whom he spotted as a Jew and insulted grossly. That
got him in wrong with his wife who defended her sister's hus-
band, de A got regally drunk on white wine to forget
it all took me out on a ride in his buggy while in that state
and once home, after the ride, made motions with an axe which
were not reassuring for my head nor for that of his gardener.
The next day he apologized, sold his furniture, bought a ranch
in Mendino county or such and disappeared from my flab-
bergasted gaze. O! you Latins! He is a very bright man,,
but balanced on a razor edge.
Yet after all I am glad the United States did not fight.
Wilson followed Washington's advice and posterity may say
that he did well. It's too bad that he did not use all the dip-
lomatic weapons which he had in his possession. He could
have kicked out all the German officials and broken relations
without firing a shot, simply using economic pressure as a club.
In ordinary life, when you don't like people you simply close
your door to them that does not mean that you are honor
bound to hit them on the head with a broomstick in addition
to telling the family not to open the door.
I think that American influence will be diminished in Europe
for some time to come because of the Lusitania and because
Bernstorff and his gang did as they pleased without check
and that will be unfair because the weaknesses of sincere paci-
fism are not any uglier or baser than the crimes of militarism
* A Spaniard in California.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 263
and Europe will never be able to thank America enough for
what Americans have done and are doing for Belgium, the
Northern Departments and the wounded and orphans on both
sides.
As for your little La Fayette debt, it is cancelled, I believe,
by the actions of your ambulance drivers, of your aeroplane
esquadrilla, and by the sacrifices of Americans who have en-
listed either in the Legion Etrangere or with the Canadian
troops. So next time we walk along strange itineraries in Paris
moving electically through the Quartier Latin and La Cite, we
shall. hold up our heads very proudly and slap in the face people,
who may not look at us just the way we want them to. I shall
be an American for the occasion and shall have my moustache
shaved.
My lieutenant is again off to the races or some other place,
so I am the boss, having a table, a candlestick and a berth in
my cellar. Things would be pretty pleasant if it did not drizzle
so in these blamed Vosges. It was snowing when I came
across the range! Just like New England weather you can't
tell what the thermometer has in reserve for you.
The last good-sized town through which I came on my way
here is a mountain summer resort, full of villas strung up along
a lake flashy hotels a Coney Island Big Moose atmo-
sphere; no sign of war except for a few machine guns and the
Red Cross on the hotel roof but a few miles from there more
hotels, perched on the mountain top and those all shot to pieces
by shells. It made quite a contrast.
Well, this is a huge letter and I have exhausted all the news
of the sector.
264 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
June 18th.
Took a trip into the sap which goes Dutchwards about fifty
yards no sign of any steps in the sand, but it is a dangerous
highway. I had Boyden's Colt with me, but no rifle.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 265
Translated.
June 19th, 1916.
To A :
Not many letters from America of late. I dare say you are
having Commencement in that happy land where life is spent
normally. I am very glad to receive Life; it gives me an idea
of what people say across the water. The propaganda in favor
of "FOrphelinat des Armees" is very interesting. It would
not be a bad idea for you to adopt a little French boy. O*
the poverty when everything will be ended, and what a shame if
people do not do everything in favor of the victims, young and
old. We are in a rather interesting and quiet sector. At one
time there had been talk of sending us somewhere else, but
now we no longer hear anything about it.
266 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
June 22, 1916.
To Miss H- -:
Pardon me for not writing a letter, but we ran out of paper
and the stores are just a few miles back. No great news out;
here. We are on a sandy hill and trenches built in the sand
are much like the Biblical House, especially when shells fall
plumb into them, which has happened twice to my tiny sector
since I have been up here. We expect to be going down or
back to civilization soon. It rained for three weeks and now
it is hot as pepper a weakening set of conditions; many are,
shaky. Thank you very much for the clippings. With them
and Life, I keep in touch with the United States' way of think-
ing. Is it war with Mexico? Perhaps we don't feel like
hugging the Russians! What next? Verdun is still a
horrible gash.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 267
July 2d, 1916.
To B :
We have been travelling so of late that my duties as a cor-
respondent are getting hazy. We left Alsace, for good prob-
ably, last Tuesday. We left the trenches Monday about mid-
night, sneaked our way in the dark to a safe place where the)
machine guns couldn't get us, then climbed over the Vosges,
reaching the highest point about 9 A. M., then kept on and got
into a camp by 11: pretty tired and wet (poured great guns)
and hungry but pretty glad to be in France once more and
away from the yaw yaw and nicks nicks of the Alsatian patois.
The next day we came down the French side of the Vosges
and paraded in grand style through one of the summer resorts
of the region summer resort minus the squash bugs, aero-
planes being fond of the place. The next day we rested. The
two following days we w T ent on and now we are here in a tiny
village getting refreshed.
This is a rolling New Englandish kind of country and wq
are all glad to be out in the open, having nothing to fear and
plenty of time to bask in the sun. We may stay here two or
three weeks, then we shall go North to attack; according to
all probabilities, there are going to be great doings out that
way and we want our share of them. For the present we think
of nothing but sleeping (I have a bed, glory be), eating and
getting washed up in plenty of water, instead of in a tin cup.
We have a fine cook and a pleasant dining-room so life is
rosy. They have come to set the table so I must quit but let
me warn you against your piano teacher. She is a theosophist
or my name is mud. Look out, she'll want to convert you to
the craziest form of mysticism on the market. The lady who
268 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
had had green and purple husbands to whom I taught French
for my sins in Easthampton you may remember handed me
precisely the same line of talk. Beware lest you end your days
at Point Loma.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 269
July 5th, 1916.
To Miss H- -:
I am writing you from a tiny French village in the rolling
country which forms the foot-hills of the Vosges on the French
side. We are about eighty miles from the trenches and the
battalion has never been so far back into the country and from,
the Dutch since war broke out two years ago. We are out here^
to get into walking training once more and to forget the
trenches in case the attack in the North with the English should
be successful. It is a very nice change, for the present at least.
The summer so far has been very rainy and the trenches where
we were in places were so sandy that we were kept building the
walls all the time while in other spots the water did not drain,
off and the dugouts were very unhealthy places. There was so
much sickness that at one time we were not more than one,
hundred men for eight hundred and fifty yards! I had never
seen the men so played out though, when we were relieved in
the night from Monday to Tuesday, everybody picked up and
we managed to reach the crest of the Vosges before noon and to
cross over into France without anyone's giving out, though
some dragged along pretty sadly, making S's like drunken men,
as they went along. Now everybody is fattening up and all
the troubles are forgotten. We don't expect to go up North
before the middle of the month and we fully enjoy our dip into
civilized life without worrying about what may come later the
motto in this business more than in any other being "Sufficient
unto the day is the evil thereof."
Yesterday was July 4th. That date must have had a special
significance to the U. S. A. folk, this year, after these months
of tribulations as a neutral nation, a narrowly escaped Mexican
war and a presidential campaign ahead.
270 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Extract from another letter not dated but arriving
Auburndale, August 3d, 1916.
To B- -:
I refuse to write a letter it's too hot and besides there is
nothing to say as life is as flat as a pancake or a Kansas town
or a faculty meeting. We trot around and over the country
in pursuit of imaginary Boches, then we sleep and eat and so
days go by as alike as Siamese twins. A squash bug life of the
purest Beverly type is more full of imprevu than our existence.
Did I ever tell you my opinion of cats? Well, for your sake
I never killed any, but I may have betrayed my country in being
so forbearing. At the last trenches where we were, German
cats came across the line to us and we used to feed them and
show them every courtesy, but with very few exceptions they
would go back to the German lines and probably tell on us.
I have thought since, that we should have put them in irons
right away.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 271
From the Diary.
July 20th, 1916.
T- , who had promised to be so good, stole a rabbit
from the old people then it came out that he had stolen a
hen at Urimenil judgment then platoon fire on the
Marseilles road pretty depressing performance. He is good
for court-martial. He is a crook, but there is no proportion
between the punishment and the crime, except in so far as war
time compels the most rigid discipline. I never heard of any
petty thievery being committed in Alsace. T is a Pro-
testant. He told me very unexpectedly that he did not want
to see the priest, from which I judge that he tried some sty;
trick with the Holy Roman Church. The liaison got a hen,
too, but it has not been found out and that august body will not
be disturbed. They are likely to be more cautious from now or\
from T 's catastrophe. Our cook heard a hen cackle,
to-night as we were eating he dove into the hen house and
came out with the "fruit" still warm explaining that the lady
of the house counted on four eggs a day from her hens andj
that he conveyed any egg over the regulation four. It was,
funny as the dickens, but it makes T 's rabbit and even,
his hen less and less important.
272 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Translated.
July 23d, 1916.
To A :
We have passed close by Paris and now we are settled in
the flat country, quite a change after leaving Alsace. We are
waiting for events. I hope we will cooperate with the British
in the near future. We are living in a queer hamlet. The
houses are poorly built- as no stones are to be had, the walls
are made of the strangest compounds of bricks, mud, straw,
nodules of silex, etc. The men from the Vosges, who are in,
the habit of seeing houses built so as to stand the severest win-
ters cannot get over their surprise, and they show utter con-
tempt for those wretched hovels. Moreover there is no water
except in the wells, the billy-goats are called "matores," brandy
is called "bistrouille." These men from the Vosges are posi-
tively scandalized because for them any kind of brandy is
"gnole." All these things tend to confirm them in the belief
that here we are not in France.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 273
July 23d, 1916.
To Mr. G- -:
That almost unanimous rallying of Spanish sentiment
around the German cause is rather baffling. To be sure we
have played that country some pretty mean tricks in the course
of centuries and the clericals have made the most out of history.
We went by Paris a few days ago and now we are not very
far from the English. We may attack with them before very
long. It may be dangerous and if anything serious should hap-
pen to me, would you write to my sister at Northampton?
That does not mean that I am taking life tragically and that
I am sending you my obituary. The morale remains good, as
the papers take so much delight in printing. After two years
of war the fact remains that if the Germans win out in a war
which has so well illustrated their philosophy, the planet will
be uninhabitable until there is an uprising which might be worse
than the present catastrophe.
We are glad to be out of Alsace for the present at least
it seems enjoyable to be going along level roads instead of
climbing up mule trails. Under bombardment we may miss
the ridges and accompanying angles marts. I don't believe in
a spectacular trouee any more than you do. There is no very
good reason why we should perform what they have failed
to accomplish, since it will always take men to attack and
merely machine guns to defend.
274 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
July 24th, 1916.
To Miss H :
It can't be raining in New England any harder than it is
here. If it's that way all over the world we may yet hear of
floods in July and August in California. Here it is getting
quite serious, as the farmers the few who are left at home
can't get the hay in, while in some places the wheat stands in
swamps rain every day and every night about continuous per-
formances of showers with interludes of sunshine we seem to
be taking up our travels again bound, we don't know where to,
but as there are great doings underway at about every point
of our five hundred miles of front, life promises to be interest-
ing wherever we are landed. We are no longer trench troops
we may have lots of trouble ahead but little monotony, if any
At any rate, don't be surprised if I don't write very regularly
from now on for a few weeks, as the mail autos may be hard
put to it finding us to take our letters back to where things
run normally.
The trouble with Mexico seems to have quieted down. It's
just as well. It isn't a bad plan to leave some parts of the
world quiet for the present. Thank you very much for the!
clippings they are always most welcome. S. P. 190. We
travel along with our sector.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 275
August 6th, 1916.
Contrary to what might be expected, no great personal news.
We are still in our hamlet awaiting developments. Some great
things are under way undoubtedly for we have kept hearing the
roar of artillery day and night for three days a continuous
roar, like that of a cataract. Those who are on the grounds
must go half-crazy from the sheer continuity of the crash. We
have no idea how long we are going to be left in peace and
comfort. We had no idea when we left our late stamping-
grounds that we would be shelved for such a long time. We
may lose nothing by waiting.
What was my amazement a few days ago, while stepping
in the little one-horse local grocery store, to be confronted with
an advertisement embellished with a photo of the Monterey
Hotel, Monterey, Cal. ! It was the same kind of surprise as
when I caught sight of Le Journal de Pontarlier in a bar-room
at La Honda, Cal. my father having written for years in said
paper. All going to prove that the world is tiny and that it is
foolish to make such a rumpus on its surface as the Germans
and the Imperial ideal have started.
Your war with Mexico has ended agreeably. It is a good
thing. You can gain no glory fighting Greasers and you have
lands enough and you are in no danger from the south and
you may do a lot of good to this misguided world by being pa-
tient and starting new precedents in diplomacy making it walk
in the open and serve the interest of the nation in the broadest
sense instead of creeping in the dark to help out a few lucky
shysters. In spite of the Lusitania, Wilson may loom big yet
in the history of the world. I absolutely refuse to put a small
276 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
dingy political motive back of his foreign policy. It seems to
me that he acted logically as representing a Nation made up
largely of convinced pacifists. It is not time to talk peace now
in France, but after the war it will be a shame if all the fine,
and generous movements for general peace which were at the
bottom of most political discussions are not taken up again and
with more vigor. After two years of this fighting business I
can't agree with those who say that there will always be war,
and any man who has the generosity to fight for peace envers
et contre tons seems to me most respectable. It's very easy
for a Roosevelt to be popular. All one needs to do is to appeal
to the cowardice of those who are afraid and to the passions
of those who are, above all, proud or vain or greedy. Wilson
could have been immensely popular with California, New
Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and a good part of the Mississippi
Valley simply by getting hold of a few Mexican border states,
giving poor down-trodden promoters a chance to get fatter.
Romain Rolland is getting damned up and down because he
keeps airing his belief that in spite of all things done, there
may yet be a few good Germans in the world. He is veryj
much more creditable to his nation than that ass of Saint-j
Saens, who since the Belgian and Northern atrocities, has dis-
covered that Wagner had no musical sense at all. It would
be too bad for France if there were a dozen Romain Rollands,
writing and talking, but it would be a sign of mortal disease,
in the nation if all thinkers and all professional men were of.
the Saint-Saens stripe. A confirmed, unabashed, untractable
idealist here and there is a beacon light, no matter how de-
structive his theories would be if applied without discrimination.
It seems to me that Wilson is a Puritanical idealist whose mis-
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 277
takes will be more than made up for by the new orientation,
which foreign affairs in the United States may get from his
principles of patience and forbearance. What made me write
out this "tartine" is the fact that I have often to explain the
United States to the men here who, being ill informed and not,
analytical, think that the United States were afraid to fight;
Germany! As foolish an opinion of you as so many of your
bourgeois had of us ante bellum.
Well, this is an atrocious letter to send a lady. Fortunately
it's getting dark and Stio pere et stio mere* want to eat supper
and I must let them have their table. A few more weeks here
and I be on to their patois.
* This father and this mother.
278 Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
August 7th, 1916.
To A :
Your letter came yesterday. All Western Massachusetts is
indeed a beautiful region. The war over, you and I will take
a fine trip through all the Hamptons. And next time you
come to Europe I will show you all my haunts: Steinbach,
Uffholz, Hartmannweilerkopf, Metzeral, etc. It is possible
that ere long I will have to add a few names to this list, though
at present we are still leading a peaceful life in our hamlet. But
of late I assure you it was lively at the front. For three days
our artillery kept up night and day, and without ceasing for
a moment the most frightful dance.
I did not find your name in Life. The work of the $73*
is a fine one and I am glad you are participating in it. Where
has the father of the little girl been killed ?t
Our brother is sending me now regularly one pound
packages called: Victory packages. Because, if we were to
start on a long march the small packages are the best.
* Orphelinat des Armees.
t Renee Halfer. Her father died of typhus in the prison
camp in Cassel.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 279
August 21st, 1916.
S. P. 190
To Miss H :
We are not very far from your English cousins. They and
we are bombarding with a continuity which quite beggars de-
scription. There is a canopy of steel over our heads just about
day and night. We are so used to the constant reports and
hisses that we don't pay any attention to anything that falls
not in our immediate neighborhood. You have had plenty of
thunderstorms this year. Well a barrage is like the most furious
thunderstorm you ever heard, only it goes on and on by the hour
and when it turns to ordinary bombardment it's like an ordin-
ary storm. (Living in New England is fine preparation for
war. ) Will write you at length when we get back to some sane
region.
280
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Translated.
August, 1916.
To A :
We are still at some distance from the front waiting for our
turn to come and there are still a great many men ahead of
us. Therefore, we have nothing to do save the usual manoeu-
vres. Since I am with the battalion I have never been so com-
fortable. The lieutenant offers me his bedroom and I eat with
the quartermaster and the sergeant-major. I cannot give you
any details about important things because we do not know
what is going on and the papers are stuffed with mere trifles.
In connection with a remark you made in one of your letters,
I wish to tell you that if some of my colleagues have returned
to the United States it was because they were ill or because
they had a pull. If one is in good health, at the present time,
one cannot possibly leave the army by fair means. Possibly
those belonging to auxiliary services may have special favors,
secretaries, nurses, etc., but not so with the fighters. But any
how, when one has undertaken a task one should see it through.
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied 281
August 10th, 1916.
To Mr. G :
I feel pangs of remorse for having sent you a letter fore-
boding fateful events in a very near future. The fact is we
are still between Paris and the firing line mainly occupied
in taking good care of ourselves. We fully expected to be
sent right away to take part in some battle of epic character,
"filer vers les epopees," as my captain said, but now I am rather
inclined to think that they keep in store for us some autumnal
devil of a stroke. Nothing seems to indicate that we are soon
to start for the region where there is a constant rumbling of
cannon. And yet in our Theory we read, Any disengaged
body of troops should right away march to the firing line
(doit marcher au canon). How many inane statements are
to be found in that blessed Theorie? It will be real fun to
read it after the war.
282
Letters from a Chasseur a Pied
Translated from the French.
August 27th, 1916.
To Monsieur D :
It seems that we are going to attack and I do not wish to
take part in this affair without writing a few words to you.
It is perfectly possible that I may come out unscathed, like
many others, but it is also possible that I may not. I am writing
to my brother, John, a letter of general interest. If I should
not come back, you would tell him that to the last my thoughts
were with him and with our family in America and also that
I do not regret the choice I made in returning to France. This
will seem very foolish if to-morrow or the day after I should
return as usual, but you will certainly understand that at this
time I cannot refrain from looking at all the possibilities and
be silent.
Be also assured that I entertain towards your family and
towards you a feeling of the deepest gratitude.
Your friend,
ROBERT PELLISSIER.
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