This friendly British view of our soldiers in France is from the pen of a noted war
correspondent of The London Morning Post

I have recently visited the miniature America now installed in France, and installed in the most French part of Central France. There is nothing more French than these ancient towns with historic castles, moats, dungeons, and torture chambers, these old villages, where farms are sometimes still battlemented like small castles, and this countryside where living is easy and pleasant. On to this heart of France has descended a whole people from across the ocean, a people that hails from New England and California, from Virginia and Illinois. The American Army has taken over this heart of France, and is teaching it to "go some". Townsfolk and villagers enjoy being taught. The arrival of the American Army is a revelation to them.

I was surprised at first to find how fresh a novelty an allied army was in this part of France. Then I remembered that these little towns and villages have in the last few months for the first time seen allies of France. The ports where the American troops land have seen many other allies; they saw, indeed, in August, 1914, some of the first British troops land, whose reception remains in the recollection of the inhabitants as a scene of such fervor and loving enthusiasm as had never been known before and probably will not be known again. In fact, to put it brutally, French ports are blasÉ. But this Central France for the first time welcomes allied troops. It is true they had seen some Russians, but the least said of them now the better. Some of the Russians are still there, hewing wood for three francs a day per head, and behaving quite peaceably.

These old towns and villages look upon the American Army in their midst as the greatest miracle they have ever known, and a greater one than they ever could have dreamed of. One motors through scores of little towns and villages where the American soldier, in his khaki, his soft hat, (which I am told is soon to be abolished,) and his white gaiters, swarms. The villagers put up bunting, calico signs, flags, and have stocks of American "canned goods" to show in their shop windows. The children, when bold, play with the American soldiers, and the children that are more shy just venture to go up and touch an American soldier's leg. Very old peasant ladies put on their Sunday black and go out walking and in some mysterious way talking with American soldiers. The village Mayor turns out and makes a speech utterly incomprehensible to the American soldier, whenever a fresh contingent of the latter arrives. The 1919 class, just called up, plays bugles and shouts "Good morning" when an American car comes by.

Vice versa, this Central France is perhaps even more of a miracle to the American troops than the American troops are to it. To watch the American trooper from Arkansas or Chicago being shown over a castle which is not only older than the United States, but was in its prime under Louis XII., and dates back to a Roman fortress now beneath it, is a wonderful sight. Here the American soldier shows himself a charming child. There is nothing of the "Innocents Abroad" about him. I heard scarcely anything (except about telephones and railways) of any American brag of modernism in this ancient part of France. On the contrary, the soldier is learning with open eyes, and trying to learn with open ears, all these wonders of the past among which he has been suddenly put. The officer, too, even the educated officer, is beautifully astonished at all this past, which he had read about, but which, quite possibly, he didn't really believe to exist. The American officers who speak French—and there are some of them, coming chiefly from the Southern States—are, of course, heroes in every town, and sought after in cafÉs at recreation hours by every French officer and man. Those who do not know French are learning it, and I remember a picturesque sight, that of a very elderly, prim French governess in black, teaching French to American subalterns in a Y.M.C.A. canteen.

A great French preacher the other day, in his sermon in a Paris church, said that this coming to France of millions of English troops and future millions of American troops may mean eventually one of the greatest changes in Continental Europe the world has ever known. His words never seemed to me so full of meaning as they did when I was among the Americans in the heart of France. There, of course, the contrast is infinitely greater than it can be in the France which our own troops are occupying and defending. These young, fresh, hustling, keen Americans, building up numerous works of all kinds to prepare for defending France, have brought with them Chinese labor and negro labor; and Chinese and negroes and German and Austrian prisoners all work in these American camps under American officers' orders. Imagine what an experience, what a miracle, indeed, this spectacle seems to the country-folk of this old French soil, who have always lived very quietly, who never wanted to go anywhere else, and who knew, indeed, that France had allies fighting and working for her, but had never seen any of them until these Americans came across three thousand miles of ocean.

Something of a miracle, also, is what our new allies are accomplishing. They are doing everything on a huge scale. I saw aviation camps, training camps, aviation schools, vast tracts where barracks were being put up, railways built, telegraphs and telephones installed by Chinese labor, negro labor, German prisoners' labor, under the direction of American skilled workmen, who are in France by the thousand. There are Y.M.C.A. canteens, Red Cross canteens, clubs for officers and for men, theatres and cinemas for the army, and a prodigious amount of food—all come from America. The hams alone I saw strung up in one canteen would astonish the boches. American canned goods, meat, fruit, condensed milk, meal, &c., have arrived in France in stupendous quantities. No body of American troops land in France until what is required for their sustenance several weeks ahead is already stored in France. Only the smallest necessaries are bought on the spot, and troops passing through England on their way to France are strictly forbidden, both officers and men, to buy any article of food whatsoever in England. As for the quality, the American has nothing to complain of, so far as I could see. All pastry, cakes, sweets are henceforth prohibited throughout civilian France, but the American troops rightly have all these things in plenty. I saw marvelous cakes and tarts, which would create a run on any Paris or London teashop, and the lady who manages one American Red Cross canteen (by the way, she is an Englishwoman, and is looked up to by the American military authorities as one of the best organizers they have met) explained to me wonderful recipes they have for making jam with honey and preserved fruit. The bread, of course, they make themselves, and, as is right, it is pure white flour bread, such as no civilian knows nowadays.

One motors through scores of villages and more, and every little old French spot swarms with American Tommies billeted in cottages and farmhouses. Many of them marched straight to their billets from their landing port, and the experience is as wonderful for them, just spirited over from the wilds of America, as it is for the villagers who welcome these almost fabulous allies. But it is the engineering, building, and machinery works the Americans are putting up which are the most astonishing. Gangs of workers have come over in thousands. Many of these young chaps are college men, Harvard or Princeton graduates. They dig and toil as efficiently as any laborer, and perhaps with more zeal. One American Major told me with glee how a party of these young workers arrived straight from America at 3:30 P. M., and started digging at 5 A. M. next morning. "And they liked it; it tickled them to death." Many of these drafts, in fact, were sick and tired of inaction in ports before their departure from America, and they welcomed work in France as if it were some great game.

Perhaps the biggest work of all the Americans are doing is a certain aviation camp and school. In a few months it has neared completion, and when it is finished it will, I believe, be the biggest of its kind in the world. There pilots are trained, and trained in numbers which I may not say, but which are comforting. The number of airplanes they use merely for training, which also I must not state, is in itself remarkable. "Training pilots is the one essential thing," I was told by the C.O. These flying men—or boys—who have, of course, already been broken in in America, do an additional course in France, and when they leave the aviation camp I saw they are absolutely ready for air fighting at the front. This is the finishing school. The aviators go through eight distinct courses in this school. They are perfected in flying, in observation, in bombing, in machine-gun firing. On even a cloudy and windy day the air overhead buzzes with these young American fliers, all getting into the pink of condition to do their stunts at the front. They seemed to me as keen as our own flying men, and as well disciplined. They live in the camp, and it requires moving heaven and earth for one of them to get leave to go even to the nearest little quiet old town.

The impression is the same of the American bases in France as of the American front in France. I found there and here one distinctive characteristic, the total absence of bluff. I was never once told that we were going to be shown how to win the war. I was never once told that America is going to win the war. I never heard that American men and machines are better than ours, but I did hear almost apologies from American soldiers because they had not come into the war sooner. They are, I believe, spending now more money than we are—indeed, the pay of their officers is about double that of ours. I said something about the cost. "Yes, but you see we must make up for lost time," was all the American General said. And he told me about the splendid training work that is being done now in the States by British and French officers who have gone out there knowing what war is, and who teach American officers and men from first-hand experience. This particular General hoped that by this means in a very short time American troops arriving in France may be sent much more quickly to the front than is now the case.

An impression of complete, businesslike determination is what one gets when visiting the Americans in France. A discipline even stricter than that which applies in British and French troops is enforced. In towns, officers, for instance, are not allowed out after 9 P. M. Some towns where subalterns discovered the wine of the country have instantly been put "out of bounds." No officer, on any pretext whatsoever, is allowed to go to Paris, except on official business. From the camps they are not even allowed to go to the neighboring towns. They have, to put it quite frankly, a reputation of wild Americanism to live down, and they sometimes surprise the French by their seriousness. It is a striking sight to see American officers and men flocking into tiny little French Protestant churches on Sundays in this Catholic heart of France. The congregation is a handful of old French Huguenots, and the ancient, rigid French pasteur never in his life preached to so many, and certainly never to soldiers from so far. They come from so far, and from such various parts, these Americans, and for France, as well as for themselves, it is a wonderful experience. I was told that the postal censors who read the letters of the American expeditionary force are required to know forty-seven languages. Of these languages the two least used are Chinese and German.