Trenches

French Lorraine

Lorraine is now French, but, of course, it was not so during the war.

Kultur

The so-called German culture.

Barb-Wire Posts

Herein is described a common optical illusion or phenomenon seen by all soldiers, old and young, experienced or green, during the long night vigils looking through the wires, across No Man’s Land.

Boche

A German.

Hun

A German. The people of Germany take great exception to being called “Huns,” protesting that they are not of this stock. After the defeat of Attila and his Huns at Chalons, in 451 A. D., by the combined efforts of the Celts themselves, the indigenous people of France, the Romans, who were still masters of the country, the Franks, who had already become a power in the land, having advanced as far south as the Somme, and the Visigoths, who, early in the same century, had established their great empire in southern France and Spain; after this great battle the Huns retreated back into Germany, where many of their descendants must still be, but of course the majority of the German people are not, from an ethnological standpoint, Huns. The reason for this appelation being applied to them is simply that when a people have the attributes of a Hun, they must expect to be so designated. A man may very properly be called a pig without any misapprehension that he actually travels upon four hoofs. However, it is possible, though not probable, that the leopard may change his spots; and time, and contact with civilization, and a democratic form of government may eventually eradicate the present very marked idiosyncrasies of the German race.

Your Gas-Mask

“full-field”

The full-field pack, consisting of blankets, shelter-half, clothing, extra shoes, etc., weighing over 50 pounds, on the back of an infantryman, and guaranteed to increase 50 pounds in weight every five kilometers after the first ten kilometer mark has been passed.

full marching-order

The full-field pack as described above, plus rifle, cartridge-belt with a hundred rounds of ammunition, two bandoliers, each containing a hundred extra rounds, gas-mask, mess outfit and the steel helmet, commonly known as your tin hat.

Slum and Beef Stew

Josephus

Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy during the war.

gobs

Nickname for sailors.

Brains of the Army

Any order apparently wrong or ridiculous is generally provocative of the soldiers saying, “Brains of the Army.”

Thotmes III, (or Thutmose or Thutmosis)

Of the Eighteenth Dynasty, who began his reign about 1500 B. C., Egypt’s greatest conqueror, and under whom the Egyptian Empire attained its largest extent. Rameses II (the Great) of the following Dynasty, is, however, the more generally known.

Cyrus’ doughboys swept etc.

Refers to the passage of Cyrus and his great army through the Cilician Gates, on his way from his conquest of Lydia in Asia Minor, to his descent of the Euphrates Valley to Babylon, whose easy capitulation in 539 B. C. finally brought to an end the old glory of the Babylonian Empire, which, after a long period under Assyrian rule, had blossomed forth in a glorious recrudescence, in the latter part of the Seventh Century B. C, under Nebopolassar and his famous son Nebuchadnezzar—and then known as the Neo-Babylonian Empire, or, more commonly, as Chaldea. The reader will doubtless remember that it was through the same passage in the Taurus Mountains that Ashurbanapal, le Grand Monarque of Assyria when at the apogee of her power in the Seventh Century B. C, and also Alexander the Great, sweeping to his eastern conquests, both passed.

Doughboys is the popular present-day nickname for infantrymen.

Sitting on the World

When the situation is thoroughly agreeable and everything is “breaking” just right.

S.O.L.

Well known soldier expression which, elegantly translated, means being totally and entirely out of luck, but not to be adopted for “polite conversation.” Remember this admonition.

Mr.Fly

G.I. Cans

Large high-explosive shells of about 6 inches diameter or over, and made of thick galvanized iron or what appeared to be such.

Cooties

Are pleasant little neighbors in the trenches, due to the inadequacy of bathing facilities.

The Salvation Army With the A. E. F.

John Doe. Private Doe

The designation of an American soldier, where no specific name is used, as, for example, to fill in the place for a name on a sample blank or application of any kind. Not used as a popular nickname for the American soldier as Tommy Atkins is used for the British soldier.

A. E. F.

American Expeditionary Forces: the title of the American troops in France during the war.

Shell-Holes

The “77”

The typical artillery piece of the German army, and having a caliber of approximately three inches, roughly corresponding with the famous French “75,” though not as effective, but quite effective enough.

Food

Salvation

Salvation Army.

Song of the Volunteers of 1917

Bayard

The great chivalric hero and warrior of France during the reign of Francis I. The Chevalier Bayard was killed in northern Italy in 1524, during the advance of Bourbon at the head of the Imperial forces.

the Cid

The chief heroic figure of Spain, who lived in the Eleventh Century, fighting ably against the Moorish power until exiled by his king in the year 1075, after which he became a free lance, sometimes engaging in battle the Infidel and sometimes the Christian. He died in 1099, and, while a very able commander, it is generally understood that most of his great deeds are a gorgeous fabric of tradition rather than actual history.

Artillery Registering

The bursting of shrapnel over your trenches, by the enemy, in order to get the range for their shell-fire which is to follow.

Trucks

Toto

A nickname for a Cootie, qv.

Including nuts, candy etc.

The American soldier has a notoriously “sweet-tooth,” and big husky men positively gormandize on things saccharine, when obtainable.

Mademoiselle

The army man pronounces the word “mademoiselle” at full length, using the most punctilious care to enunciate each and every one of the four syllables. Whether this is due to the word being foreign to many of them, or whether it is due to their all-saving subtle sense of American humor, so that it seems rather delicious to call the little French ladies by so long and ponderous a title, I really do not know, but I strongly suspect that it is the latter.

The First Division

Caesar had his Tenth Legion, Napoleon had his Old Guard, and the American Army during the World War had its First Division. It might therefore not seem entirely malapropos to quote the words of the great French general Mangin, who was the corps commander of the First Division of the American Army, the famous First Moroccans of the French Army and the Second Division of the American Army, at the Second Battle of the Marne, that began on July 18th, 1918, and was the turning point of the whole war. In this great door movement the First Division was given practically the post of honor at the hinge itself, i.e., directly at Soissons, only one division, the 153rd French Infantry Division, being on the inside of the First Division, and as it was in this engagement that a gentleman of Teutonic origin, operating a machine-gun from our extreme left flank, and apparently very much irritated about something, put a bullet in my side and out my back, it is only natural that the message of Gen.Mangin was of interest to me, and saved, and here quoted verbatim:—

Lauds Americans in Battle.
General Mangin Thanks Pershing’s Men for Brilliant
Part in Drive.
(By Associated Press.)

With the French. Army in France, Aug. 7.—General Mangin, who was in direct command of the Allied forces in the drive against the German right flank south of Soissons, has issued the following order of the day thanking the American troops for their brilliant participation in the battle which caused the German retreat between the Marne and the Aisne:

"Officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the Third American Army Corps:

"Shoulder to shoulder with your French comrades, you threw yourselves into the counter-offensive begun on July 18th. You ran to it like going to a feast. Your magnificent dash upset and surprised the enemy and your indomitable tenacity stopped counter-attacks by his fresh divisions. You have shown yourselves to be worthy sons of your great country and have gained the admiration of your brothers in arms.

"Ninety-one cannon, 7,200 prisoners, immense booty and ten kilometers (six and a quarter miles) of reconquered territory are your share of the trophies of this victory. Besides this, you have acquired a feeling of your superiority over the barbarian enemy against whom the children of liberty are fighting. To attack him is to vanquish him.

“American comrades, I am grateful to you for the blood you generously spilled on the soil of my country. I am proud of having commanded you during such splendid days, and to have fought with you for the deliverance of the world.”

“The Stars and Stripes,” the weekly paper of the A. E. F. in France, in giving a tabulated form of the record of the various divisions, and their insignia, which was worn on the shoulder of the left sleeve, said the following of the First Division:—

Division Insignia: Crimson figure “1” on khaki background, chosen because the numeral “1” represents the number of the division and many of its subsidiary organizations. Also, as proudly claimed, because it was the “First Division in France; first in sector; first to fire a shot at the Germans; first to attack; first to conduct a raid; first to be raided; first to capture prisoners; first to inflict casualties; first to suffer casualties; first to be cited singly in General Orders; first in the number of Division, Corps and Army Commanders and General Staff Officers produced from its personnel.”

To this might have been added that the First Division, which was a Regular Army division, and originally comprised about twenty or thirty per cent “old soldiers,” and the rest of us “war volunteers,” but proud of being “Regulars,” the First Division, which consisted of the 16th, 18th, 26th and 28th Infantry Regiments, the 5th, 6th and 7th Field Artillery Regiments, the 1st Engineer Regiment, and a complement of Cavalry, etc., was the division that General Pershing, the commander-in-chief, picked out to fill the most vital positions on important occasions, as, for example, when, from the whole army, he chose the First Division to go into the front line just west of Montdidier, at the Battle of Picardy, to help hold the very apex of the huge German bulge that had swept southwestward from St.Quentin to Montdidier, in the great series of Hun drives which started on March 21st. 1918. Again, it was the First Division that Pershing placed at Soissons at virtually the hinge of the great door movement in the turning point of the whole war, the Second Battle of the Marne, as heretofore described; and it was the First Division to which Pershing again gave the post of honor when the St.Mihiel salient was closed, as it was this Division that was placed on the inside position of the great southern jaw, just east of Xivray and dangerous Mont Sec.

Casualties and kilometers make very interesting reading, but when a Commander-in-chief consistently and persistently picks out one certain division for the most difficult and all-important positions, there is not much room for argumentation.

Mr.Page, in his article in The World’s Work, for May. 1919. in describing the Second Battle of the Marne, tells how the First Division went over the top with the 153rd French Infantry Division on its left, and the famous First Moroccan Division and the Second Division of the American Army on its right, and how, in this gruelling engagement, the First Division outlasted both the Second Division and the First Moroccans, and really also the 153rd French Division on its left, as this latter was obliged to get reinforcements, Mr.Page recapitulating the situation with the following paragraph:—

“When the division (the First Division) finally came out of the line it had lost more than 7,200 men, mostly in the infantry. The full complement of infantry in a division is 12.000. Five days’ constant and successful attack after a long march: an advance of more than six and a quarter miles (ten kilometers); losses of at least 50 per cent, of the infantry engaged: keeping pace with the famous Moroccan Division and staving longer in the fight—all this had demonstrated that the 1st Division could stand in any company.” In mentioning these facts there is no desire on my part to pretend that this outfit single-handed won the war, because, if I said that, I would be talking sheer nonsense. The consensus of opinion both at home and abroad, seems to be that the whole American Army lived entirely up to expectations, so that any man who was in a combat division, has good reason to feel proud of his own division, irrespective of what one that may have been. With this little word of explanation I feel at liberty to quote the following which appeared in the Paris edition of The New York Herald:—

Prowess of Yanks Compels Praise Even from Hun,
(Special telegram to the Herald.)
From Burr Price.
With the American Armies.
Friday

From a captured officer of the German army comes a remarkable tribute to the fighting prowess of the First Division of the American troops, whose work will go down in history as among the most remarkable of the present war.

He declared the Germans did not believe the Americans could produce, within five years, a division such as they had found the First Division to be. The German, when taken, had seen four years of severe fighting. This is what he had to say yesterday:—

"I received orders to hold the ground at all costs. The American barrage advanced toward my position and the work of your artillery was marvelous. The barrage was so dense that it was impossible for us to move out of our dugouts.

"Following the barrage closely were the troops of the First Division. I saw them forge ahead and knew that all was lost. All night I remained in my dugout, hoping vainly that something would happen that would permit me to rejoin my army. This morning your troops found me and here I am, after four years of fighting, a prisoner.

"Yesterday, I knew that the First Division was opposite us, and I knew we would have to put up the hardest fight of the war. The First Division is wonderful and the German army knows it.

“We did not believe that within five years the Americans could develop a division such as this First Division. The work of its infantry and artillery is worthy of the best armies of the world.”

Little Gold Chevrons on My Cuffs

The gold chevrons, called “stripes,” worn on the cuffs of “overseas” soldiers, during the World War, each one on the left cuff standing for six months’ “overseas” service, and each chevron on the right cuff standing for a wound. One wound chevron meant a wound or wounds severe enough to take a man back to the hospital, irrespective of whether he had one or a dozen bullets or pieces of shell in him on that occasion.

Captain Blankburg

The patrol herein described was what was called a “reconnoitering patrol,” sent out solely for the purpose of gathering information, keeping itself unknown to the enemy, and not fighting unless actually attacked. “Combat patrols” were sent out for this latter purpose.

Interrupted Chow

Buzzy-cart

The carts that were sent from the company kitchens, which were usually from six to ten kilometers back of the first line trenches, up to within about two to four kilometers of the front line, where they would stop at designated points until chow details from the second line came back to them, to carry the cans of slum, coffee, and the bread or hardtack, up to the men in the first and second line. All this, of course, was done under cover of darkness, but as the Germans had the range of all the roads, etc., and knew at about what time the food had to be gone after, it meant that almost every night at least one detail was shot to pieces.

Dog-tag

Small, round metal disc, suspended from the neck by a cord, and with the soldier’s name, rank and organization stamped thereon, and forming an identification tag.

The Gas-Proof Mule

“Stand-to”

In the first and second line trenches everyone was obliged to remain awake all night, but at dawn each man had to take his exact post, and be prepared to repel any enemy attack that might come over, as that was a favorite hour for doing so. This was called “stand-to.”

Infantry of the World War

Zero hour

The exact time at which you start forward to attack.

A First-Class Private

Loot

Abbreviation for lieutenant.

“Sunny France”

Soldier sarcasm, because he scarcely ever saw any sun while in France, and, of course, the majority had never visited the Riviera, nor known Paris in summer raiment, during normal peace times.

Sitting Jake

Means the same thing as “Sitting on the World,” i.e., everything salubrious and “breaking” just right.

Note

While realizing that my personal affairs are of no possible interest to the reader, it would seem, however, almost obligatory for me to do myself justice, and explain that I was quite willing to shoulder responsibility, which this poem might make it appear I was not. Hence the following little anecdote:—During a rest period back from the trenches, which was the only occasion when you had time to bother your head about smaller things, several men had applied for officers’ commissions, so I got some civilian letters of recommendation, and put in an application to be permitted to go up for examination for a commission. This application was forwarded “approved” by my company commander, together with personal recommendations from my three previous company commanders. As this officer is the one who sees you daily, his recommendation is, from a military standpoint, of more value than that of a major-general. But in spite of my application being forwarded with the approval of all four of the company commanders that I had had up to that time, it was disapproved higher up by someone who very seldom could ever have even seen me. But having had no thought or intention of getting a commission, when I entered the Army, and having crossed over to Europe as a civilian, at my own expense, in August, 1917, to enlist in the American Army in France, which I did on September 1st, 1917, in Paris, so as to absolutely insure getting into the trenches, and as at the time of my application I had already accomplished my purpose, it may readily be discerned that the return of my application did not perturb the habitual equanimity of my soul, nor cause me to lose any of my natural sleep or youthful charm.

Only for You

rowdy or cad

While very often some junior, or even senior, officer would fall under this category, and even worse, the majority of them really tried to give their men a square deal. If an officer were a rough-neck, snob, or as the men in the ranks would usually express it, a ribbon-counter clerk, it was only quite natural that he would take cowardly advantage of his shoulder straps to make it as miserable as possible for the men under him, but if an officer were a gentleman in civilian life, the man in the ranks was sure to be handled as a man and treated fairly, so long as he did his military duty and conducted himself as a soldier. Of this latter type, I can look back with pleasure on all my company commanders, remembering especially men like Lt. Victor Parks, Jr., and Capt.Allen F. Kingman, “officers and gentlemen” in the highest sense of the word. Upon the one or two officers of the other type it is quite unnecessary to dwell. When once free from contact with a skunk, one simply bathes, changes one’s clothes, and promptly allows the odoriferous memory to be wafted away and disseminated in the ambient atmosphere of oblivion.

Silver bursts cut

Artillery flares at night show red, but in the early dawn they appear against the dark hillsides like bursts of silver.

Old Fusee

Fusee

Soldier term for his rifle, the French word “fusil” meaning that weapon.

The Colors of Blighty

Because of its brevity, succinctness and expressiveness, I have used the word Blighty to designate a military hospital, though it was never in really popular use by the American soldier for this purpose, and to the British soldier it simply meant going back to England, but as so often Tommy Atkins went back to his Tight Little Island because he was wounded, Blighty frequently meant “hospital.”

When Nurse Comes In

The phraseology and repertoire of the army man must not be taken too seriously, as nine-tenths of the time it is simply a safety valve for ebullient spirits or dread monotony, and with little or no real harm back of it.

Charlie Chaplin in Blighty

The famous “movie” comedian of the cinema.

Embarkation Home

M P

Military Police; soldiers acting in that capacity.

THE END