Part 14 (1/2)
Secretary Baker riding on flat car during his tour of inspection of the American Expeditionary Forces.]
Secretary Baker carried his office with him, a delightful discovery to the men in the aviation-fields, who had some problems sorely pressing for decision, and who found, when they told them to Mr. Baker, that he had no aversion to taking action on the spot. For example, at aviation headquarters, Mr. Baker asked if the fliers who came first from America were the first to have their commissions after the final flights in France. He learned that because of some delay in giving final instruction, through no fault of the aviators, these first commissions had not been given. Mr. Baker inst.i.tuted a full inquiry at once, and at the end of it directed that the commissions, when finally awarded, should bear a date one day in advance of all others, so that the priority rightfully earned should not be lost.
After hours in the field, during which hundreds of machines with American pilots flew in squadron formation, and many experts did spectacular single flights, Mr. Baker made a short speech to the fliers.
A French officer, who had been instructing at the field, said to Mr.
Baker: ”With all these machines in the air, you see no more than a tenth of what America has in this one school. You will soon have no more need of French instruction. We have shown everything we know, and your young men have taken to the art with astonis.h.i.+ng facility, as well as audacity, nerve, and resource. The danger and difficulties fascinate and inspire them. I think it must be what you call the 'sporting spirit.'”
As he was leaving the aviation-field Secretary Baker said: ”The spirit of every man in this camp seems in keeping with the mission which brought him to France. The camps, appointments, and organization are admirable. It is gratifying to learn from their French instructors that our young aviators are proving themselves daring, cool, and skilful.”
On the night of March 18 Secretary Baker began his preparations for a visit to the trenches. With a general commanding a division and one other officer he motored to the farthest point, where he dined and stayed the night in a French chateau. At dawn the next morning the party made ready to go on. But the Boches appeared to have a hunch.
They sh.e.l.led the road on which Secretary Baker had planned to travel with such ferocity that the officers in command refused to take the risk of permitting Mr. Baker to go over it. The American general and all the French officers then begged Mr. Baker to give up the trip to the trenches. They wasted a lot of persuasion. Mr. Baker just went by another road. A colonel of about Mr. Baker's build had loaned him a trench overcoat, and some rubber boots, and the secretary had a tin helmet and a gas-mask, but he would wear the tin helmet only for a moment, and the mask not at all.
The officers in charge of the party found presently, to their acute horror, that even the trenches were not enough for Mr. Baker. Nothing would do him but a listening-post. And when he had finally got back safe, and had come back to the communication-trenches from the front, everybody breathed a sigh of relief. The relief was premature, for the liveliest danger of all was on the return motor trip, when an immense sh.e.l.l buried itself in a crater not fifty yards from the secretary.
Fortunately, the debris flew all in the opposite direction, and n.o.body was hurt.
The First Division heard an address the following day from Secretary Baker. ”It would seem more fit,” he said, ”and I should much prefer it, if, instead of addressing you, I should listen to your experiences. Your division has the distinction of being the first to arrive in France. May every man in your ranks aim to make the First Division the first in accomplishment. With you came a body of the marines, those well-disciplined, s.h.i.+p-shape soldiers of the navy.
”Yours was the first experience in being billeted, and in all the initial details of adjusting yourselves to new and strange conditions.
In this, as in developing a system of training, you were the pioneers, blazing the way, while succeeding contingents could profit by your mistakes.
”Day after day and week after week you had to continue the hard drudgery of instruction which is necessary to proficiency in modern war. You had to restrain your impatience to go into the trenches under General Pers.h.i.+ng's wise demand for that thoroughness, the value of which you now appreciate as a result of actual service in the trenches.
”If sometimes the discipline seemed wearing, you now know you would have paid for its absence with your lives.
”If I had any advice to give, it is to strike hard and shoot straight, and I would warn you at the same time against any carelessness, any surrendering to curiosity, which would make you a mark needlessly. The better you are trained the more valuable is your life to your country, as a fighter who seeks to make the soldier of the enemy, rather than yourself, pay the supreme price of war.
”On every hand I am told that you are prepared to fight 'to the end,'
and I see this spirit in your faces. Depend upon us at home to stand by you in a spirit worthy of you.”
Next Secretary Baker spoke, though informally, to the Forty-second Division, far better known as the Rainbow Division. There he explained some of the reasons for military secrecy.
”While it was in training at home I saw a good deal of the Rainbow Division,” he said ”Then, one day, it was gone to France, where it disappeared behind the curtain of military secrecy which must be drawn unless we choose to sacrifice the lives of our men for the sake of publicity. The enemy's elaborate intelligence system seeks at any cost to learn the strength, the preparedness, and the character of our troops. Our own intelligence service a.s.sures us that the knowledge of our army in France which some a.s.sume to exist does not, in fact, exist.
”If we were to announce the ident.i.ty of each unit that comes to France, then we would fully inform the enemy of the number and nature of our forces. Published details about any division are most useful to expert military intelligence officers in determining the state of the division's preparedness, and the probable a.s.signment of the division to any section.
”But now it is safe to mention certain divisions which were first to arrive in France and have already been in the line. This includes the Rainbow Division, famous because it is representative of all parts of the United States. This division should find in its character an inspiration to _esprit de corps_ and general excellence. It should be conscious of its mission as a symbol of national unity.
”The men of Ohio I know as Ohioans, and I am proud that they have been worthy of Ohio. A citizen of another State will find himself equally at home in some other group, and the gauge of this State's pride will be the discipline of that group of soldiers, its conduct as men, its courage, and its skill in the trenches. You may learn more than war in France. You may learn lessons from France, whose unity and courage have been a bulwark against that sinister force whose character you are learning in the trenches. The Frenchman is, first of all, a Frenchman, which stimulates, rather than weakens, his pride in Brittany as a Breton, in Lorraine as a Lorrainer, and his loyalty and affection for his own town, or village, or home. In truth he fights for his family and his home when he fights for France and civilization. Thus, you will fight best and serve best by being first an American, with no diminution of your loyalty to your State and your community.
”With us at home the development of a new national unity seems a vague process compared to the concrete process you are undergoing. You are uniting North, East, South, and West in action. We aim to support you with all our resources, to make sure that you do not fight in vain.”
The brigade of the veterans was reviewed on the last day of the camp inspection.
Secretary Baker went by motor, with officers and aides, as far as the foot of the hill from which he was to review the troops deploying in the Marne valley. Twenty days of rain had made the hilltop inaccessible by motor. As Secretary Baker started up one slope, General Pers.h.i.+ng and his aides ascended another, and the two men met at the top.
The brigade swept by at company front, with full marching equipment.