Our first half million; the story of our national army

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. In Cantonment : 15

11. "Making Men" . .: S7

Foreword

Ian Hay told the story of Britain's First Hundred Thousand. This is the tale of America's First Half MiUion.

One has fried to tell of the National Army in its making. One has sought to reduce some of the sincerity of our men in cantonment to pen and ink. That has not been difficult, for the very air thereabout breathes with the deep purpose of the new army and its deep conviction in the justice of our cause. We will not lose.

There is a saying in the army that an Artillery Captain's work is never done. The small hours of the morning, and only them, belonged to the writing of this book. Literary polish it lacks. No effort has been made to attain it. The one thing sought after was sincerity — ^to tell just what the selected men of the National Army are doing, how they are faring,

ix

X FOREWORD

why their very presence in uniform is the dawn of a new and more glorious America. And their slogan is "Berlin or Bust!" . . . And it 5 AaZZ be Berlin!

CAPTAIN X ,

Camp ,

3— th Field Artillery, National Army.

TO-MORROVS^

It is springtime and children romp. The crocus and violets are coming out, and across the nursery window a tall maple weaves a leafy lattice of green. There beside his boy a father stands, his hand upon the sturdy little fellow's shoulder, his eyes lost in dwelling upon a memory that he seems to find somewhere beyond the rolling April hills. He hears a skylark's song; the sparrows are contentedly chattering. Across the blue a crow darts ; it is as if he must flee with his sombre colors from here; for all is happiness. The world is at peace.

"Just ten years ago to-day," the father says aloud, patting the shoulder of his boy. "Ten years."

"Daddy! Will I be a soldier, too?"

His face filled with understanding, the father regards him.

"Boy," he proposes, not answering the question, "I had a friend in France."

xi xii TO-MORROW

"Yes, daddy; I know. He was a soldier."

"One night, son, when the guns were growling along the Meuse, he came with other French officers to visit our battery. He told me that night, as we sat in a dug-out and smoked, a story. I'll tell it now to you."

The boy claps his hands. He likes his daddy to tell him stories of the war.

"Son," his father begins, "my friend told me that when he was very young his father took him on his knee and told him: 'My boy, in eighteen-seventy your father went to war, against the Prussians. And, my boy, you will have to go to war some day, too, because your father lost/ It was a French father who told his boy that, a little boy, just like you."

"Yes, daddy."

"And, son," and the father snatches up the youngster in his arms and hugs him against his heart.

"But you," he promises his boy, "you won't have to go to war — never, son — for there is no more war, son — :no; it's gone, son — gone for good. For ten years ago your father went to war against Prussia, and your father won,"

But the youngster spies a playmate crossing the lawn and, wriggling from his father's arms.

TO-MORROW xiii

he runs to join him. A shadow briefly crosses the father's face ; but then he smiles. "Youth to youth," he thinks, and then he could have sung for joy as he thought that he was one who, ten years before, had marched away to make safe a world for the children.

OUR FIRST HALF MILLION CHAPTER I

IN CANTONMENT

Spaces of sandy pine woods, swelling fields ready for the harvest, the sleepy villages of south Jersey, had been whirling past our motor — and then we got our first glimpse of Camp Dix. A confusion of unpainted pine sheds took shape; a towering dark skeleton that might have been an Artillery observation post on France's front, but merely a water tower in the making; and then the Army trucks rumbling through the mazes of vaguely defined roads, workmen swarming by the thousands, a Negro militia sentinel, who shouted at us: "Halt! Who's dar?" . . . That was our first impression of Camp Dix.

Commissioned at the Training Camp of

Madison Barracks, we had been ordered with

hundreds of our brother officers to report for duty at this New Jersey cantonment of the new National Army — America's answer to the German war lords. It was with a thrill that one realized that at this same time ten thousand officers, products of the intensive courses conducted by the War Department during the summer now ending, were reporting at cantonments similar to Camp Dix throughout our land. America had called to arms. The first draft, six hundred thousand men for the new National Army, would all be in these cantonments before winter's end. And we were to make them into soldiers and lead them into battle — in France. ... A glorious new adventure had begun.

Now it is upon this National Army that the safety of our land depends. It is not my purpose to present the facts for this statement. They have been before the public, brought there by our President, by our Secretary of State. The designs of the Imperial German Government upon the liberty of the world, upon our liberty, have been officially put before our people by Washington. Our little Regular Army, our National Guard, is speeding overseas. In that vast battle line of Europe they will be swallowed up. But they will

OUR FIRST HALF MILLION IT

hold the line for America until the National Army comes, until we come. Not forgetting that we number but a half million or so, and that when we leave cantonment others will come in, be trained, and go as we shall go. And so as our pressure gets greater will the Hohenzollern sue for peace. For as the French say, ''Jusqu' a bouf'— ''To the End!" iWe shall finish this Imperial menace now; we shall not leave it for our sons to fight over. And that is the mood of our awakened nation,^ of its National Army.

Will it be able to accomplish that? Will the American make as good a soldier as the formidable helmeted man of the Kaiser's legions ? Have these drafted men the stuff? What of the spirit? Has the mass of America been civilian so long that the problem of having it act and think in a military way will be over- >\ helming? . . . Let us see.

Come back with me to the cantonment in Jersey as we saw it that first day. There, near Wrightstown, one of those four-corner villages with a "general store," a wooden city was rising overnight. To the swarmings of eight thousand workmen, a mad clattering of hammers, the shouts of laborers, unloading lumber from an interminable line of flat cars, the comings and goings of preoccupied Engineer Officers, farmers, busy gathering in their crops that fell within the confines of this new military area, and the bewildered questionings of civilian concession seekers. Camp Dix grew.

Where on this tract of pine-fringed Jersey flatland there were in July but a few isolated farmhouses, there was by August-end the sturdy unpainted shape of a permanent military garrison. Where of a morning, so it seemed, there had been but a pile of lumber, evening often found the skeleton of a pine shed. Magically the framework filled in; buildings grew from nothing in mere days. Wasn't it Cadmus who showed his teeth and a host of armed men appeared?

We officers were at Camp Dix for more than a week before the first of the National Army came. We thought, "What will they be like? How will they take to military training? Have they the fighting stuff in them?" Harassing speculations, these, for the officers who were called upon to produce results with the new army.

As always, rumor ran wild. There were tales of the Socialists, of the I. W. W., of

German agents who had cleverly waged campaigns in the draft centers. Not a little apprehension was felt over what these breeders of sedition might have created. And then the men came.

In a Field Artillery regiment there happened one of those little incidents which often give an index to the tenor of great happenings. A newspaper artist came down from New York. He visited my Battery after having made pictures of some of the recruits in another regiment. He asked me, "What is a five-per-cent. man? I heard one of the rookies over in the next barracks boasting that he was five per cent.; it sounded funny to me — ^five per cent."

I explained to the artist that a five-per-cent. man was one who had been first called to the colors.

That rookie — ^bless him! — had deemed it an honor.

Away with the idea that because the American has been fed up so long on the theory of doing what he pleases, when he pleases, that he will not accept military service. The doubters, the scoffers, the alarmists, forecasting dire trouble with these drafted men, those persons simply did not know their country. They did not know the men who composed it.

Certain newspapers in discussing the draft during the summer used an unfortunate word. It was "conscript." With that word one associates dragging footsteps, sullen hearts, downcast eyes. But these men that came to us were not conscripts; they were, in fact, simply repaying their country in its hour of need for everything their country had done for them and for their fathers. Which, if you don't think is much, travel across the face of Southern, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, as you may have done; see what life offers to mankind there. No, not conscripts, these men of the new National Army; rather men who thoroughly understood what they owed their country; and other men who had not thought of that, but still felt something intangible in the air. For America had called upon them to help.

I shall tell the story of my old Battery; it is the story of every Battery, of every Company throughout the United States ; it is the tale of the First Half Million.

The men came to us from the small towns and cities of a county in the western part of

New York State. The total of the first five per cent, was twenty-one rookies. One was a bank clerk, another a brakeman, another a waiter ; two were lawyers. There was a rubber worker, electricians, a chauffeur, a hotel chef, a barber, a contractor. Could anything be more democratic?

In military things they were absolutely green. In about two months we could comfortably rely upon half of these men as fairly efficient, non-commissioned officers. Old-time soldiers will smile at this. Those who smile do not yet know what it is possible to accomplish by new intensive training that the war has developed. They do not know that in August, 1914, England took college men, trained them day and night for five weeks, and sent them into the field as Lieutenants. That was necessity; the Lieutenants were not efficient at the front, but they became so in time. But from 1914 to 1917 the makers of armies learned much. Our experiment in this work was the officers' training camps of the past summer. What was accomplished can be seen by any trained military observer who watches the officers of the Reserve Corps moulding the iS^ational Army.

Here is the meat of it: Not a few of the drafted men are of a caliber that could have won commissions in the officers' training camps, and the identical methods that were put into effect there by the regular army instructors were applied here in September to some few of the draft. For this was the situation :

Our records showed us that by the first of October each Battery would have received its full war strength, 193 men. To handle these men there was a Captain and four Lieutenants. Where were the non-commissioned officers coming from? Our Battery got two from the Regular Army ; we needed nearly fifty. Allah provides no non-coms. Our Regular Army already in France could ill afford to spare any of its Drill Sergeants. It was up to us to make our own. And just as the barracks were put up overnight, so were the many Drill Sergeants.

At the outset a record was made of every man; his character was studied. Down into the Captain's book went certain information. Was his intelligence above the average ? How did he respond to discipline? Did he unconsciously have a military bearing, or was it possible to give him one? Did he think quickly and accurately, or was he slow-witted? Did he rattle? What had he done in civil life?

As swiftly as accuracy would permit this data was obtained. A commander made mental notes as to whom might be used as non-commissioned officers and who not. Training ' — the task of first making the men soldiers, before specializing them in artillery or infantry • — began. Do you know the difference between the American and the German attitude toward soldiers? If you would understand this National Army, if you would put yourself in a position to judge accurately what you may expect from your army, you should understand that difference. It is the key to the situation.

The Germans utterly destroy a private's individuality; regard him as a mere piece of mechanism. In the training camps this paragraph from United States Army Regulations was impressed upon us : '''Officers will keep in CIS close touch as possible with the men under their command and will strive to build up such relations of confidence and sympathy as will insure the free approach of their men to them for counsel and assistance/'

That brings us to the composite rookie of the

National Army. Bill Hawkins, who had gone through the High School of Olean, New York, who had gotten a job in the bank and who had never been farther away from home than New York City in his life, found in the mail one morning a little slip telling him to report at an Exemption Board for physical examination. His spirits at that time registered minus. He had felt all along that Tom and Jim would be called, but somehow he'd miss; it simply couldn't be. It was something like the world coming to an end.

To the Exemption Board Bill went. A doctor punched his ribs, indeed gave Bill a very trying quarter of an hour. Zealous persons, these small-town doctors, so eager were they not to be accused of wrongly exempting men that they sent some to camp physically unfit — who were returned to their homes. We got one man from a. Jersey town who had two thumbs and six fingers on his right hand. An artillery officer remarked that he would be useful on the guns setting off data on the instruments with some of his fingers and using the others for cleaning the lens. But the Divisional Surgeon could not see it that way, and back the rookie went to Palmyra, N. J.

Of course, that was a singular case; it is a commentary, however, on the over-zealousness of rural doctors. All such cases were carefully weeded out by the Army Surgeons at camp so that the work of training was only begun with men fit for it. Bill Itawkins, for example, from the bank in Olean, was stamped "O. K." by the Army Surgeon who examined him as soon as he reported to camp. With Bill were many men from his home town ; for the plan of the organizers of the National Army was to assign men from the same locality to the same regiment. One of the many special trains that on September 6th were hammering toward cantonments in all parts of the country brought Bill Hawkins to Camp Dix. He was met at the station by a young officer who wore U. S. R. on his collar and who had a steady, appraising eye. He marched Bill off with his new comrades to the barracks. Here he was given a mess kit. From Napoleon has come down the dictum, "An army marches on its stomach." Bill Hawkins sat down to a warm meal. His first deep impression was one of savory food.

Presently he was taken out in the barrack yard with his new comrades and lined up according to height. This done, Bill was assigned to a temporary squad and was dismissed with the admonition that he remain around quarters. Were it not for the newness of it all, his curiosity excited, he must have felt depressed. What a sight that was! Men in all kinds of civilian attire, trying to keep some kind of a military line, but never having been taught; they were quite hopeless. It is not the most inspiring thing in the world to be thinking about joining an army — thoughts of trim uniforms, of bands, flags — and then to be herded into a barrack yard in civilian clothes. It gives the look of and induces the feeling of a mob of strikers or "down-and-outs" waiting outside of a factory for a job. It is why officers are invariably so anxious to get their men in uniform.

Unprepared as we were for war, it was little short of a miracle how we were ever able to get the men into uniform. Nobody was to blame. The blame lay upon the whole nation, upon our lack of foresight, upon our fatuous belief as a people that war could never come to us, upon our credulity in believing the friendly assurances of the Imperial German Government.

Superhuman efforts dribbled supplies into camp, but only America that built a vast country out of the wilderness could have done this — outfitted as many men as we did for war on such short notice.

Bill Hawkins was finally given his outfit. He was entirely satisfied until he put on the Army shoes; they felt too big. Greatly excited, he sought a Lieutenant. "These shoes are seven and one-half," he said. "I wear sevens. Could I have them exchanged?"

The Lieutenant, w^ho had spent the summer hiking for ten miles at a stretch, spoke with rare wisdom — the wisdom of blistered feet. "I thought the same as you do. Private Hawkins," he said, "and the first march I took landed me in the hospital. Then I learned that on a stiff march the foot swells to a size one-half larger. Keep the shoes."

So, with his American Army shoes, which are the lightest and strongest in the world, with his canvas leggings, khaki pants, woolen shirt to match, campaign hat, its jaunty red cord of the Artillery, the only touch of color about him, Bill Hawkins fell in line to get his first instruction as a soldier. To the tune of "Attention!" "Right Face!" "Forward

March!" "Halt!" he began. He thought the Lieutenant in charge made a lot of fuss over nothing.

**I want you men," said the Lieutenant, "to stand at attention with your heels together — that means together, not one a quarter of an inch ahead of the other. I want you to rest the weight of the body lightly on the balls of your feet. Stand erect, chest out, shoulders thrown back, stomach pulled in, back slightly arched at the waist. Head is firm, chin high, eyes looking straight to the front. Hands hang naturally at the sides, thumbs just touching the seam of your trousers. That is called the Position of the Soldier. Try it."

Bill Hawkins tried; he tried again; he kept on trying; he tried for half an hour. But he couldn't see the sense of it. Later in the day at a conference it was explained to him.

"The work you did to-day," said the Captain, "was to give you complete control of your body in drills, so you can get around quickly and easily at every command. You all know how to walk and run, but you don't know how to do it without making extra work of it. You are being taught how to walk at a steady gait. Our military experts tried all sorts of ways before coming to the conclusion that marching one hundred and twenty steps to the minute, keeping the upper part of the body erect, not exerting it, will find a man fresher at the end of a hard hike than any other gait."

Bill Hawkins accepted this on faith, and having good stuff in him, made up his mind to get it right. Three weeks later he was made a Corporal — but I anticipate. There were those of his comrades, however, who could see no sense in all this, who never did a thing in the prescribed way unless an officer was standing over them. But there was always "kitchen police" for them to do.

The next sensation Bill Hawkins had was the military physical training drill. This gave him a bad half hour. He discovered the location of muscles, the existence of which he was unaware. Secretly he raged against this exercise. "I came here to fight," he muttered. He had wondered what "Arms forward and upward raise" had to do with war.

"For every man an army has in the hospital," he later heard the Captain say, "five men are needed to get him there and take care of him. A fighting man's worth depends upon his physical fitness. He must be strong enough so OUR FIRST HALF MILLION

to stand all kinds of physical strain, all kinds of weather, resist all kinds of disease. Also, his nerves and mentality must be in a condition to bear up under the terrific clamor of modern battle. These physical training exercises make you strong enough to stand that. It is the old story — the weak perish, the strong survive. I take it you all want to survive ; don't spoil your chances by not doing your exercise conscientiously and neglecting the care of your body."

Bill Hawkins understood and appreciated. Like most of his comrades in the National Army, he decided not to be a weak sister. But the next day he got an awful shock. He was taught how to salute and told he would be required to salute all officers. Something rose within him. He told himself as he put up his hand, imitating the instructor, that he was only doing this because he was compelled to. Nor was he alone in this. Back in quarters with his comrades that night a little group began to buzz.

"I don't see why we have to be saluting all the time. I don't mind it once in a while ; but this putting your hand up to your hat every time you see an officer, it's like a servant or something." There was a chorus of muttered assent. A generation of "I'm .as good as the next man'' thought was misinterpreting the salute.

Bill Hawkins made a few resolutions before he went to bed. He'd be "damned" if he'd salute all the time !

The next day he passed an ofBcer ; he knew he had been told to salute officers. The officer did not seem to be looking at him. Bill's thought was, "Can I get away with it?" He failed to salute and quickened his pace.

"Come back here!" the officer called. Bill, feeling he was going to be hung or something, nervously awaited developments.

"I want you to realize," said the officer, taking in at a glance that Bill was a recruit, "that you have been the cause of my disobeying Army Regulations. I owe you a salute and I cannot give it to you. By the Regulations I am compelled to salute every enlisted man. The prescribed form is that the enlisted man shall salute first. I cannot salute until you have done so. Salute!" . . . And Bill did.

Sensing that the strangeness of the men to military courtesies would make discontent unless it was explained to them, the Captain called a meeting. He told them the story of the salute.

"In olden days," he said, "a knight invariably kept on his helmet. Only when he was among friends would he remove it. That meant he was not afraid of getting his head split open with a battle-axe. From that, the raising of his hand to take off his helmet has come down to us — the bow of civilian life. The salute is the soldier's way of making a bow. Officers are forbidden to take off their hats to women; they salute instead. That is the Army's way of doing it. So you see there is nothing subservient, nothing degrading in the salute ; it is merely common politeness. If you weren't polite in civilian life, you will be polite here, and you will be so much the better men for it. And don't forget one thing: In the old days, only free men in an army were allowed to raise their hands ; the slaves were not. A prisoner in the United States Army is forbidden to salute."

That made it easier for Bill Hawkins and his comrades. The salute was not an invasion upon their rights as free-born American citizens. One could go on and tell of other things that Bill caught on to quickly. He began to like the life. The comradeship began to be pleasant. There was a relief from financial responsibility. He was fed, he was clothed, he was housed, the services of a doctor were at any time free. He got $30 a month and a promise of more if he was made a non-commissioned officer. He made up his mind to be a Sergeant. He paid attention to everything, asked questions and, when he got a chance, he studied in the military text-book that had been issued to him.

As the days wore on he began to get an idea that there was something to the army far more interesting than mere mechanical drill. He began to slash the air with signal flags, to send and read messages at Army speed. He began to get an idea of the Field Guns, of the enormous power they were capable of developing and of the uncanny scientific accuracy with which their shells can be dropped miles away. He began to love the guns. That day he became an Artilleryman. . . .

It has been my rare fortune to be able to hear the opinion of the highest officers of our Division on the new men of the National Army and of the Captains and Lieutenants who are commanding them — the men from the Officers'

34 3UR FIRST HALF MILLION

Training Camps of last summer. The men whom I heard speak are West Point graduates, picked men of the Army; one a General, the other a wizard of our General Staff, vet-' erans of war in Cuba, the Philippines, Mexico ; men whose business it has been to know precisely what has gone on in Europe since history repeated itself and Germanic tribes swept down from the north.

They were of the opinion that the officers from the Reserve Corps were highly efficient and that .the calibre of the men called into the ranks of the National Army being above the average of the Regular Army recruit, this new National Army would be the best this country ever had.

What we did with our 190-odd rookies other officers have done. We sensed the caliber of these men; we saw that their spirit was right, that they were ready to play the game. They didn't like war. We Americans don't like war; we like peace. But so long as war has been forced upon us, so long as the Hohenzollerns have endangered our liberty as a nation, why, the men of the draft were ready.

It was put up to them, one night after they came to us ; they could work out their own salvation and be happy in the job, or they could have it forced upon them and be unhappy. I repeat, they were not conscripts ; they did not come here as conscripts. They came with their heads high and ready to look you straight in the eye, so. of course they worked out theii" own salvation. Their spirit is stirring. The little things count. Against our desire we were compelled to make my first quota of men do the work of furniture movers, scrub women and scullions for two solid afternoons. The barracks had to be cleansed and put in shape for a new quota of the draft. But not a man grumbled. When they had worked for three hours steady, some' of them came up to me and asked if there wasn't something else they could do. Ask the woman how much the average man likes to* do housework. These rookies took it as being "all in the game."

Will they make good soldiers ? Wait a few months; wait until the horses come and the guns and caisons go rolling down the road. A healthy life, the last yearnings for civilian hab^ its worn aw.ay; regular hours,, finely trained bodies, on horseback, that exhilarating sensation, with eyes unconsciously sweeping the horizon. The Battery guidon, a red and gold pennon snapping in the wind. Will they have pride in it? Does Young America have pride in its college flag? Intensify that and you will get an idea of the way this army will feel.