Skip to main content

March 10, 1918 - Don Martin arrives in Paris to cover the American Expeditionary Force

Don Martin diary entry for Sunday, March 10, 1918: 
Arrived in Paris 10 p.m./
Here I am in Paris after a very tiresome but interesting day. Arrived at Havre at 7 a.m. but heavy fog necessitated staying at anchor till 10 when we came in. Calm all the way over. I lay down for few hours but kept my clothes on. Long unpleasant wait to get passports vised and baggage passed at Havre. Had lunch at famous Tantoni’s with couple Englishmen, one of them decent. Went for long walk all over the city.  


Started for Paris at 5:19. Had no trouble with baggage. Slept most of the way to Paris. Met fine young aviator named Hodges of Albany, Ga., on the train and brought him with me in a taxi to the Crillon Hotel. Probably won’t see him again. Bennett picked out a good hotel for me. Went to Herald office and met staff. Burn Price and I then went for an hours walk up one side of Seine and down the other. Back to hotel at 1 a.m. ready for bed!
Weather ideal.
       Arriving in Paris for the first time, after two months in London, Don Martin was immediately taken by the city, calling it the “wonder city of the world.” The Commodore, James Gordon Bennett, had put him up at The Crillon, just about Paris’s best hotel. And eating there and at Prunier led him to exclaim ‘the London people ‘feed’, here they feast’. In the fourth year of war and not far from the front line, he still found ‘steak and a dozen oysters’.  His diary entries portray a first week spent sightseeing, while angling with success to get closer to the front. He also had time for letter writing – perhaps reflecting his newspaperman’s necessity to put words on paper everyday.
      The Hotel Crillon is located on the Place de la Concorde, facing the River Seine and next to the U.S. Embassy. Here are photos from October 2017. The Crillon was recently purchased by a Saudi Arabian and a complete internal refurbishing had just been completed. 
Hotel Crillon, Paris, October 2017
Hotel Crillon entrance
Hotel Crillon on Place de la Concorde





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

October 14, 1918: Don Martin’s funeral service in Paris

        A funeral service for Don Martin was held in Paris on Sunday, October 13, 1918, at the American Church, rue de Berri. The New York Herald published this report on Monday, October 14, 1918. MANY FRIENDS AT CHURCH SERVICE FOR DON MARTIN Simplicity and Sincerity of Character of “Herald” Writer, Theme of Dr. Goodrich’s Sermon                     Funeral services for Don Martin were held yesterday afternoon in the American Church in the rue de Berri. They were simple and impressive. Before the pulpit rested the coffin, over which was spread the American flag. Floral offerings were arranged around it. Flat against the wall behind the pulpit were two American flags and the tricolor, and on either side were standards of these two emblems. Uniforms of the United States army predominated in the gathering of 200 persons composed of friends Mr. Martin had known for years at home and friends he had made in France. The depth and beauty of character which drew these old and new
2 comments
Read more

Welcome to Don Martin blog on Armistice Centennial Day

Welcome to the World War I Centennial Don Martin daily blog, on Armistice Centennial day, November 11, 2018. Don Martin was a noted war correspondent reporting on the American Expeditionary Forces in France in 1918. Regrettably he died of Spanish influenza in Paris on October 7,1918, while covering the Argonne Forest offensive. He missed the joy of the Armistice by a month. Beginning on December 7, 2017, this blog has chronicled each day what Don Martin wrote one hundred years earlier – in his diary, in his letters home, and in his multitude of dispatches published in the Herald newspaper, both the New York and the European (Paris) editions. The blog, for the several days following his death, recounts the many tributes published, his funeral in Paris and his trip back to his final resting place at his home in Silver Creek, New York. To access the daily blogs, click on the three red lines at top right, then in the fold-down menu, click on Archive. There are 316 blogs from D
1 comment
Read more

October 17, 2018: Final Salute to Don Martin, Soldier of the Pen

          We have reached the end of the Don Martin World War I centennial memorial blog. Starting on December 7, 2017, this daily blog has chronicled, in 315 postings, the remarkable story of my grandfather’s contribution to the Great War.               This blog was possible because of the availability of my grandfather Don Martin’s diaries and his letters to my mother, and his published writings in the New York and Paris Herald.             We have followed him from leading political reporter of the New York Herald at the end of 1917, to head of its London office in January-March 1918, and then to France as accredited war correspondent covering the American Expeditionary Forces, based first in Neufchateau, then in Meaux, Nancy and finally for a few days in Bar le Duc. And then, his final return to his hometown in Silver Creek, New York. Don Martin has given us a full and insightful, if grim, picture of the Great War, as witnessed by the American war correspondents. We have seen
1 comment
Read more