August 20, 1918: Don Martin writes a long letter home

Don Martin diary entry for Tuesday, August 20, 1918: 

Stayed in today. Wrote a long letter to Dorothy, one to Helene and one to McEwan. With [Caroll] McNutt [Colliers], [Fred] Ferguson [U.P.], Smith [Chicago Tribune] and [Edwin] James [New York Times] we went to a new place for dinner and found some good food. Sat around and talked and sang till ten. Everyone expected an air raid because of the full moon but there was none.

      In his letter of August 20 to Dorothy, Don Martin made a prediction about the end of the war, and showed that his ‘opinion’ was not infallible:

                 The Germans are receiving their first real setback since the first battle of the Marne. They are not licked yet though – not by any means. People at home are likely to get the idea from the glowing accounts they read of our troops that we have already started the Hun back home and that victory is in sight. That is far from true. We have been able to turn the tide against the Hun but he is still powerful and on the defensive will be able to fight for a long time. The war will not end this year. That is certain. It m-a-y end next year. My notion is that it will end next fall, but that is only opinion.

        He also bemoaned the absence of America coming up with a new weapon to end the war – a premonition of the atom bomb that ended the next big war?

                   America has done wonders but the hoped for device or invention has not yet appeared. The Edisons, Henry Fords, Teslas and other geniuses have not come through with a single thing which excels the Germans. The only thing in which United States excels is in the fighting qualities of the individual soldier. The doughboy as they call him -- the infantryman – has done more than anyone expected of him. If the airplane makers and the wizards of industry and invention had done one tenth as much as the fighter in the ranks, the war would be over this year.

                Don Martin again reports on German prisoner. Dated Tuesday. August 20, it was published in the New York Herald on Wednesday, August 21.

German Expected Bullet 

After Good American Dinner

Hun, Told He Would Be Killed,

Trembled When Questioned by U. S. Officers

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, Tuesday

           Interesting information regarding the attitude of the German soldier in the war was obtained from a Prussian who was taken prisoner by our troops just before daylight this morning while he was lost in the darkness. I was fortunate enough to be present when he was interrogated by our officers and saw him as he stood before them trembling, pale and so frightened that he was at first unable to talk. Asked the reason for his collapse, he said:--

           “The German officers say that the Americans at first treat prisoners with kindness until they are questioned. Then they give the prisoners a good meal, after which they shoot them or stab them to death.”

           This was the first instance we have had when the fear of the prisoner was genuine, and he was very near to a complete collapse when he was brought up for questioning. He firmly expected he would be shot as soon as our officers were through with him, and he believed their kindness was but a forerunner of his death at their hands, as he had been told by his officers.

           The circumstance is regarded as further proof that Germany is spreading a systematic campaign through her armies that the Americans are barbarians and that we take prisoners only to kill them afterward.  This Prussian prisoner declared that German soldiers believe this.

           He added that the Germans now are hopeless of achieving victory and that they now are fighting because they believe that by so doing they will be able to make better peace terms and more quickly. Since the failure of the last offensive which preceded the German retreat from the Marne, he said, the enemy is greatly discouraged, but the German troops are willing to fight indefinitely if their government is unable to make peace.

           He declared that every male German will go to battle before he will permit the devastation of France to be visited on Germany.

           The fighting on the American front to-day was transformed into a sharpshooters’ contest and a duel between machine guns.

             A daily report by Don Martin dated Tuesday, August 220, was published in the Paris Herald on Wednesday, August 21.

ENEMY RETIRES BEFORE AMEXES 

IN TOUL SECTOR

French Official Report Pays High Tribute to Yanks

Who Fought with Foreign Legion

(Special Telegram to the Herald)

By Don Martin

With The American Armies, Tuesday

           There was little activity last night and to-day on the Vesle, where American troops are holding the line. The Germans continued to bombard our lines and our guns continued to pour a stream of shrapnel and high explosives upon the Boche.

           To the east, in the Toul sector, a night patrol encountered a strong enemy patrol, and after a brisk fight drove the Huns back to their lines. It was bright moonlight and an American sergeant had crawled forward to reconnoitre. He was shot at by the Germans. A German patrol of 30 to 40 men then opened fire with rifles and grenades, supported by trench mortars and gas shells. The enemy attempted to envelop the left of our patrol, but was prevented by the fire of one American sniper, who did very effective work. The Americans opened with rifles, automatics and grenades, and the enemy retired. There were no American casualties.

           Early Monday morning the enemy in the American sectors to the east put down a heavy fire on our outposts and attempted a raid. The Boche could not get within bombing distance, being held off by the rifle fire of the Americans. Our counter-barrage came down and the enemy retired.

French Tribute

           In speaking of the brilliant work of a Moroccan division which was in the fight south of Soissons during the Franco-American offensive, a high tribute is paid by the French to the Americans who were fighting on either side of the Moroccans. The French report says:--

           “The Moroccans operated between two American divisions with which they maintained the most perfect liaison and fraternity in arms. Not only did the Americans show proof of remarkable ardor, courage and discipline, but of initiative and cooperation. On the night of July 19 an American colonel of the division on the left placed himself under the orders of the colonel commanding the foreign legion in order that the liaison might be more intimate between the two divisions. The plan of engagement of the divisions was made in common with the General Staff of the American division on the right. The valor and intelligence of the American and French armies were combined.”