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July 14, 1918: Don Martin reports that Americans are ready to check German assault

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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