Don Martin diary entry for Sunday, July 14, 1918:
Went with [Edwin] James [New York Times] to
Twenty Sixth division. Everything very quiet. Looks like calm before the storm.
Wrote cable for New York indicating big offensive start tomorrow.
Two
dispatches one dated July 14 (posted today), the other July 15 (posted tomorrow), were published under one
headline side-by-side in the New York Herald on Tuesday, July 16,under an introduction by the editors about Don
Martin’s reporting.
Don
Martin Sees Army Preparing for
Hun Drive and Their Valiant Stand
Don Martin, the Herald’s special
correspondent with the American armies in France, was among the last
correspondents to see the sectors held by our forces on the western front
before the fifth great offensive by the German hordes was launched. His despatch,
which tells of the readiness of our troops to meet and check the German drive,
was filed late Sunday afternoon. The German offensive was launched at midnight.
Mr. Martin’s second despatch describes the beginning of the drive and the
Americans’ valiant stand in what he calls the greatest battle of the war.
By Don
Martin
Special Correspondent of
the Herald with the American Armies in France
[Special Cable to the Herald]
WITH THE AMERICAN ARMIES IN FRANCE, Sunday
[July 14]
To-day I visited the American first and second lines. I am
permitted to say that they are in splendid condition.
We know that many
of our gallant soldiers will be sacrificed to the ruthless warfare of the
Germans when the impending great offensive begins. Too, I am in a position to
say that it will be but a matter of a few hours at most until the Hun will
launch this, his fifth, great drive toward the goals for which he has been
waging relentless warfare since 1914.
Also do our men
know it, but they – nearly all of them fresh from our schools, colleges and
mercantile establishments – although unused to war and heretofore diligent
workers in the paths of peace, to-day are eager to participate in the work of
halting the onslaught and driving back the enemy wherever he may be.
Draft Men Ready for
Battle
That the Huns will
strike is sure, and it is doubly sure that when he strikes our forces,
scattered from Belfort, in the southeast near the border of Alsace, to the sea,
will be involved. It is no violation of the censorship or of any confidence
imposed on me to say that the Americans, hundreds of thousands strong, are
ready for the great battle and will take part in it.
The Second
Division, including the Fifth and Sixth regiments of United States marines and
the Ninth and Twenty-third regiments of infantry, will, with the First
Division, set a swift pace for the rest of our brave fighting men. I also
predict that those of our units which will engage the enemy will include some
of our draft men, who in their first baptism of fire will equal the record of
the First Division, whose officers and men were the heroes of Cantigny, and of
those of the Second Division, with its heroes of Bouresches, of Belleau Wood,
of Torcy and of Vaux. These divisions already have demonstrated on hard fought
fields that the American soldiers are no amateurs.
Allies Ready Everywhere
Every preparation
by the Allies is directed toward effecting a massacre of the enemy when he
launches his offensive. This much is sure, that when the grey waves of the Hun
hordes surge toward our lines our big guns will roar out a gruesome welcome to
him – such a welcome as will chill his soul and heart – and grim Death will
stalk amid the sheet of lead that will belch from our machine guns and rifles.
The Allies are ready
everywhere.
 |
| Trench on the front line in Champagne |
Germany Has 1,200,000 Men
Indications are that
Germany proposes to make this coming offensive by her troops a gigantic one.
The enemy troops have had a long rest – a rest that was longer than it was
expected anywhere that they would get. Time, too, has enabled him to gather
together an immense army for the drive. We now know the Germans have eighty or
possibly ninety divisions which they can use in this impending drive. That
means she has about a million and two hundred thousand men – one of the largest
forces in all the world’s history of massed attacks.
On the other hand,
the British have had time to reconsolidate and to strengthen their positions.
The French always are alert, always erecting formidable bulwarks everywhere.
Add to this the ever increasing American forces here fit for the front line
defence and attack.
Americans Use Gas
The delay by the Germans in launching their
offensive against the Allied lines undoubtedly was due to the constant
harassing of the foe by the French and British artillery and the constant
“nibbling” by the Allies at his lines.
There should be added to this still another important factor—the
frequent drenching by the Americans of the enemy positions with mustard gas.
Indeed, our artillery is rapidly becoming a factor in the war and is handling
gas as effectively as the Germans ever handled it.
It is a barbarous method of warfare,
this gas, although it is essential that we use it. This is thoroughly
understood when it is remembered that Germany expects to poison her way to
victory by the use of savage and constant gas shelling attacks.
Don Martin wrote and
mailed one of his collections of little stories, dated July 14. It was published in the
New York Herald on Sunday, August 11, 1918.
AT THE AMERICAN FRONT
WITH DON MARTIN
By DON MARTIN
Special Correspondent
of the Herald with the American Armies in France
[Special to the
Herald]
WITH THE AMERICAN ARMIES IN FRANCE, July 14
Here
are some of the things I saw during a trip of 150 miles back of the sectors
where American troops are in the line:--
American
boys shaving themselves at the public water trough; others doing their washing
at the community wash houses.
Five
little French girls, none more than eight years of age, playing with dolls in a
village where shells occasionally fell and where the thunder of artillery was
constantly heard.
Americans
with pick and shovel digging trenches while shells incessantly whistled over
their heads.
American
girls driving small trucks and ambulances.
More
than five hundred Americans swimming in the Marne.
Forty
American aviators starting on a scouting trip over the German lines.
One
sausage (observation) balloon shot down and an aeroplane fight in which ten
machines were engaged, three plunging to the earth, two German and one
American.
Artillery Line Thirty Miles Long
A
solid line of artillery thirty miles long.
An
American millionaire’s son driving an automobile for an officer who before the
war was a small town lawyer.
A
Frenchman rebuilding his house which the night before had been wrecked by an
aeroplane bomb and which, for all he knew, would be struck again before he had
the rebuilding finished.
An
American barber shop in a small church more than a half century old, a sign
outside reading, “Shaving, hair cutting, American style.”
Three
thousand Americans preparing to sleep in a woods before going forward to take
their places in the trenches.
Twenty
negroes, one with a banjo, singing popular songs.
French
soldiers gazing with wonder while two teams of American soldiers played a game
of baseball in a field overlooking the Marne.
An
American soldier surrounded by twenty or more old folk in a tiny village
relating wonderful tales about America and making himself understood.
An
American regimental band seated in front of a stable in a very small French
settlement giving a concert to all the inhabitants, who numbered about fifty.
An
American Indian, a poilu, a Singalese and a Canadian having a drink together.
Old and Young Vie in Endeavor
A
Frenchman, eighty years old, cutting wheat with a scythe and his wife, almost
as old, binding as fast as he cut.
Five
children, none more than twelve, helping an elderly woman gather hay.
A
French girl, no more than ten, taking home a wheel barrow piled high with
fagots which she had cut in a woods far from home.
A
Frenchman ploughing with a horse and a cow hitched together.
A
shepherd and his dogs tending a large flock within three miles of the enemy lines.
Americans
accustomed to every comfort at home crawling contentedly into a hayloft with a
half dozen others to get a night’s sleep.
Young
American boys fresh from school or college returning to headquarters after wild
dashes on motor cycles along roads where shells were continually falling.
A
large American flag flying from a camion loaded with French poilus.
Chinese
driving French trucks.
A hundred Americans at different places playing with
the wonderful French children, demonstrating, as the French say, that
“Americans are fine men because they love children.”
*****
The army is proving a good school for thousands of
Americans, who, until they became members of an institution which has iron
rules, were in the habit of doing about what they pleased. One day I saw two
privates walking along a hot, dusty road. One was from Texas and one from
Philadelphia. I asked them where they were going.
“Just marching along, that’s about all,” said one.
“Corporal told us take this road and keep on going till
we came to part of the company; we’ve been walking five hours now.”
The soldiers were plainly tired, and the one from
Philadelphia was disgusted.
“”I’ll be hanged if I’m going to keep on walking. The
corporal must be crazy.”
The boy from Texas smiled.
“Say, Buddy,” said he in a somewhat fatherly manner,
“you’re in the army now. When you’re told to do a thing, you do it. It ain’t
like it was back home, where you could tell the boss to go to the devil, or
where you could quit your job and get another. You’re in the army now, and it’s
do as you’re told. You can’t quit, and you can’t be your own boss. Come on,
Kiddo. I’m going to keep on walking if it takes me way to the English Channel.”
*****
Many stories illustrative of the tenacity and valor of
the marines are told, but none has wider circulation than the following:--
In a hospital back from the lines three soldiers stood
with rifles performing guard duty. It was an unusual situation. One of the
surgeons asked them what they were there for.
“We’re sent here by our commanding officer,” replied the
corporal, “to prevent the marines from going back before their wounds are
dlressed.”
*****
Fishing and bathing in the Marne are popular sports with
the Americans, thousands of whom have been encamped along the historic stream. The
river is about the size of the Susquehanna or the Delaware or the Mohawk, but
is quieter and deeper. Its average width
is about one hundred feet, but in many places it is no wider than forty feet.
The French soldiers sit on its grassy low banks by the hour and catch scant
strings of minnows, which correspond to horndace, hammerheads, shiners and
chubs. In the Marne in the vicinity of an ancient city of ---- larger fish may
be taken if one knows where they hide and how to angle for them. One day I
stood on the bank watching the champion fisherman of ---- landing a two-pound
fish. At least two hundred other persons watched with me. They lined both banks
and stood along a bridge rail just below where the exciting event was taking
place. For fifteen minutes the Frenchman played with his catch with a skill
worthy of a Walton or a John Knox. When a companion lifted the fish out of the
water in a net the crowd on both sides of the river shouted:--
“Bravo! Bravo!’
Then they applauded and shouted words of felicitation.
Such is fishing in the Marne.
*****
Many unusual things are to be seen by any one who
journeys about the zone close to the firing line. Residents of the villages
which are closest to the line moved but long ago, but in some places three or
four miles from the line—a region within easy reach of the enemy guns—many
women, elderly men and children may be seen. One day I saw three children, two
boys and a girl, none more than ten years old, walking along with gas masks
hanging over their shoulders. They were in a zone where every soldier is
compelled to have a mask ready for use. In a little farm colony which the
Germans undoubtedly will shell some day a middle aged woman refuses to move. She
owns the colony. I saw her working in a pansy bed when shells were whistling
over her head. She paid no attention to them. On another occasion shells were
falling in a small place which the Germans apparently thought contained an
American headquarters. I was on a road about 1,000 feet from the town and could
hear the shells whistle over every minute. Between the road and the town were
four children picking peas. Shells meant nothing in their tender lives. They
had heard them time and time again.
*****
Hard
as they become, the hearts of soldiers are sometimes touched by the things they
see. Here is an instance. Five Americans were sent out on patrol to kill or
bring back a German or two. The purpose of these raids is not merely to kill or
capture. It is to find out what regiment or division is opposite and to get all
other information possible. The Americans on this particular night stealthily
came upon two Germans. The latter instantly opened up with their rifles. The
Americans killed them both. The shooting occurred well within the German line,
so it was not practicable to attempt to carry the bodies out. Instead the
soldiers made a hasty search of the pockets of the Germans, cut off the
insignia marks and numbers on their collars and slipped back to their own
lines. I was present the next morning when the documents taken from the Germans
were examined. One of the men carried a small wallet, In it were two pictures,
one of a woman and four small children, the other of a boy who was also in the
group picture. They were taken in April. In the wallet was a letter which the
soldier had written but had not yet posted. It was addressed to his wife. It
said the writer would soon be home to see his family and spoke in tenderest
terms of the children. The officers who were making the examination said very
little as they looked at the pictures and heard the letter translated.
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