Page:Ian Hay - America At War - The Times - 1918-03-21.jpg



Outside thousands of houses in America today hangs a flag—a white flag with a red border. Upon the white ground you will see black stars. A great banner sprinkled with two or three hundred such stars, displayed outside a club or bank, proclaims that so many members or employees are absent on active service. A little pennant bearing a single star, hung in the window of a humble dwelling in a back street in New York or a remote village in Texas, intimates proudly to the passer-by that the son of the house is away doing his duty.

These flags are typical. If an English household is doing its "bit," it either assumes that you know, or is perfectly indifferent if you do not. The American, when he "has the goods," believes in advertising the fact. To-day the whole vast continent of America is astir with war activity. (Some of that activity is being misapplied, as with us, but the activity is there.) "This is our war," says every man, woman, and child in America to-day, and proceeds to make it so. All social activity centres on the war. Every civilian in the street wears a button, or group of buttons, on the lapel of his coat, signifying that he has joined the Red Cross, or subscribed to War Loans, or is an adherent to the principles of the Food Administration, or has a relative in the Army. No American woman walks abroad to-day without an enormous bag of chintz containing knitting materials. She knits all the time—in the train, in restaurants, at the opera.

Only one form of entertainment is permissible, the entertainment of soldiers and sailors. The country is full of great camps, containing a million and a half of young men undergoing training. America possesses a vast number of young men, and this makes it possible to set very high standard of selection. Consequently the National Army is composed of recruits of the finest physique. Their uniform is very similar to ours, except that due allowance must be made for the American's passion for living in his shirtsleeves. The American soldier goes about his duties in a khaki flannel shirt—or "blouse," as he calls it—even on parade, and wears his tunic only in cold weather. He is having a hard time of it, this recruit—or "rookie"—for this winter is one of the coldest ever known in the States. Thirty or forty degrees of frost have been quite common, snow lies heavily everywhere— even in the South—and deaths from pneumonia have been distressingly common, running into thousands. The American recruit, though on the whole physically superior to the British recruit, is constitutionally less robust and possesses less staying power. (International athletic competitions have always emphasized this fact: the Americans have won the sprints, the British the long-distance races.) This is only natural, for it is well known that a man who can endure the vagaries of the British climate can endure anything. Again, a man called from civilian life and the (to the Briton) asphyxiating atmosphere of the average steam-heated American home naturally suffers, though an enthusiastic outdoor man in the summertime, when called upon to face the rigours of life in the open at a temperature of zero Fahrenheit. In such weather it is not easy to keep the great wooden hutments warm, and almost impossible to keep the men sufficiently exercised, which is the root of all military health.

Still, considering all things, the discipline and moral of the new Army are wonderful. Whatever truth there may be in rumours of inefficiency in the administrative departments of the United States Army, there is nothing wrong with the personnel. "The men are splendid." We seem to have heard that phrase elsewhere. "All things includes the fact that some of the recruits from the more remote districts have only the vaguest notion as to why their country is in the war at all, for few of them have followed the course thereof from its origin and early stages. However, they are content to announce that they are out to "can the Kaiser," and leave it at that. Others, again, possess a very limited acquaintance with the English language. They speak Greek or Polish or Italian much more easily—even German! The war is not at their doors, as it is at ours; few of them had seen a soldier a year ago; the restrictions and ceremonial of discipline are alike abhorrent to them; esprit de corps, which raises prompt obedience from a humiliation to a boast, cannot be created in a day. But the spirit is there—the spirit of patriotism, passionate and deep-rooted. It is difficult for us to realize the intensity of American patriotism, especially among Americans of recent origin. To the native-born American America is still the little country which bought its freedom with its own blood to the naturalized American America is the land which gave him his first real taste of personal security and liberty. Each is equally determined to do his part to-day, the one because he made America free, the other because America made him free.

But in one respect the American rookie is very much better off than his unkempt but heroic "opposite number" in Kitchener's Army. In the winter of 1914 our military authorities were far too busy converting the Kitchener recruit into an efficient fighting man to have much leisure to consider his welfare as a human being, as those who experienced the squalor and discomfort of Bramshott and Salisbury Plain and other quagmires of dismal memory, during one of the wettest winters on record, will testify. The American recruit is far better housed. He lives in centrally-heated wooden hutments; he has hot shower-baths and modern plumbing; he sleeps in a bed instead of upon three planks and a trestle. He is more or less adequately clothed, for, although there is said to be a shortage of uniforms, he is not sent into camp until he has been supplied with one. In this he may count himself more fortunate than his British predecessor of 1914, who was compelled for many weeks to perform military exercises in a reach-me-down suit and a bowler hat, and was compelled if he got wet to retire to bed while his wardrobe was dried—that is, assuming that there were any facilities for drying it.

As for the actual camp routine, the training is of the most thorough description. The men look remarkably fit and well-set-up, though suffering almost universally from spring coughs of the most deafening description, as many an instructor and lecturer has discovered to his cost! The officers are immensely hard-working, and it is satisfactory to note that the large number of British and French officers and non-commissioned officers who have been sent over as instructors in artillery, machine-gun, grenade, and bayonet work have made an excellent impression, both professionally and socially. In fact, the British sergeant-instructor, with his peculiar blend of efficiency, humour, and full-blooded sarcasm, has scored a succès fou, and has "tickled his pupils to death."

There are, of course, many intensely interesting points of comparison between training-camp life in America and in England. Over here in England we are accustomed to pursue our martial avocations in a certain cloistered seclusion. We keep ourselves to ourselves, and civilian visitors are not encouraged. In fact, a civilian in a British camp bears a strong resemblance to a stray cat in a dog show. But the American Army, as is inevitable in a country which prides itself upon its democratic bearing, is almost entirely subordinated to civilian and political influence. To-day in an American training camp the General must be prepared at any moment to put aside his work in order to entertain a couple of Congressmen, or a member of the State Legislature, or a "prominent citizen" from an adjacent town who has dropped in to pass the time of day or inquire after some protégé in the rank-and-file. The local newspapers each detail a reporter to "cover" all camp activities. The progress of training is recorded—it can be imagined with what degree of technical unprecision—while camp jokes and camp gossip are faithfully retailed. Even the mysteries of the Orderly Room are dished up for the layman's delectation. Shades of Whitehall!