Skip to main content

April 13, 1918 - Don Martin spends another day waiting in Paris

    Don Martin continued to struggle with how to get to the front of the ‘big battle’ and whether to accept an assignment with a regiment, where he would have to remain for a time. In a letter he wrote to daughter Dorothy on April 13 from the Hotel de Crillon in Paris, he told her he would to do that, but as the following diary entry shows, he was still uncertain.
Dorothy,
Tomorrow morning I expect I shall go to a town at a point not a great way from here to join the Americans who are already participating in the big battle. I shall have considerable difficulty getting around because of my inability to speak French fluently [His Mother spoke French, but apparently not around her children.]... if I manage to get to the point I am aiming at tomorrow I shall be attached to the staff of an artillery regiment and may see one of the vital phases of the big battle which may decide the war. 
I must present an amusing picture Dorothy – a typewriter, a big portmanteau and a helmet, French and British gas masks over my shoulder. Quite a job carrying all this junk and there are no porters during wartime.
Don Martin diary entry for Saturday, April 13, 1918: 
Hung around the hotel most of the day. Undecided whether to go with 1st division or to return to Neufchateau. Think I will do the latter. Met [Burn] Price at the hotel at 3 p.m. He interpreted during an interesting conversation I had with a French woman named Chaperon whom Bryan introduced me to. Had dinner with Price at the Beef a la Mode. On way back with Price met Orr of International News. Walked in rain with him and Price up Champs Elysee but returned to hotel at 9:30. Called up Martin Green at the Hotel Lotti. He thinks he may go with the 1st division tomorrow and if he does I may go with him. Went to bed early.
Commodore very ill yet. Apparently has relapse.
Germans fired shells into Paris from big gun. [The start of the Germans shelling Paris with this big gun was recorded by Don Martin on March 24.]

Weather unpleasant. Rain at night.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘New war with Israel at any moment’, ‘still digging through rubble’

The news about Iran has taken an ominous tone in the last couple days. Here is some reporting and commentary.  Newsweek on August 18, 2025, reported that Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior military adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said ‘ We are not in a ceasefire; we are in a stage of war. No protocol, regulation, or agreement has been written between us and the U.S. or Israel. A new war with Israel could break out at any moment .’  Yonah Jeremy Bob commented in The Jerusalem Post on August 19, 2025, that ‘ Khamenei can either “drink from the poisoned chalice” of diplomatic concessions … or face more airstrikes, possibly next time some targeting him directly ’.   Bob also noted that ‘ right now Iran is still digging through rubbl e’. The U.S. attacked Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan on June 22. Two months of digging. No surprise that there has been no public news about that.
Post a Comment
Read more

Assessing possible outcomes of the snapback mechanism

The initiation by the E3 of the 30-day snapback mechanism in the UN Security Council makes everything more difficult and there is great uncertainty about the outcome. Will it be peaceful with a new nuclear deal with Iran, negotiated by the U.S., endorsed by the UNSC and verified by IAEA, or will Iran withdraw from NPT with further military action by Israel and the U.S.?                 To perhaps shed a little light on what the outcome will be, here is my analysis of how the players - Iran, U.S. and E3 - may be assessing the acceptability of the range of outcomes. Four levels of acceptability were used: 1 Fully acceptable; 2 Less acceptable; 3 Just acceptable; and 4 Not acceptable. Four near term 30-day outcomes are listed, and two optimistic outcomes with an interim U.S.-Iran agreement reached within a 6-month extension.                 For the 30-day near term, the best outcome would b...
Post a Comment
Read more

‘Making nuclear fuel’ under the NPT

It is with some hesitation that I take issue with the latest publication of the renowned Henry Sokolski and Sharon Squassoni on August 15 in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, titled: “ Actually, the NPT doesn’t guarantee a right to make nuclear fuel .”  But someone should defend the IAEA and international safeguards! Here are points in question.            ‘ The [NPT] treaty was designed to prevent dangerous bombmaking activitie s.’  NPT is far more complex than that. It is common to state the three pillars of NPT: nuclear disarmament; nuclear nonproliferation; and peaceful uses of nuclear technology. Nonproliferation involves the commitment of non-nuclear states not to pursue nuclear weapons and to accept IAEA inspection to confirm that commitment is being followed. Perhaps Sokolsky intends to refer to INFCIRC/153, which lays out how IAEA and the state cooperate to carry out that confirmation. If so, INFCIRC/153 is not designed to ‘prevent’...
Post a Comment
Read more