Don
Martin diary entry for Saturday, September 7, 1918:
Stayed in today. Wrote a long letter to
Dorothy. Sent 500 word cable to New York on bravery of the 32nd
division on the defensive. All the correspondents are restless because of the
distance to the battlefront and the prospects of an American offensive soon
over on the Toul front.
Don Martin’s long letter to Dorothy dated September 7 was
about family things. But he did include stories about the wheat harvest and
about viewing the war at close range--and saying he was doing the hardest-working job he had ever seen!.
Dorothy:
...
Summer has about gone here. ... The wheat crop has all been stacked in great
piles with thatched tops. They are about 40 feet high, on an average 30 feet in
diameter ... In going to La Ferte on a main road—a distance of fourteen miles—I
could count probably 1,000 of these stacks. They are symmetrically perfect,
except in the case of a few, and the farmers seem to take pride in having them
artistic. ... The wheat stays there until the thresher comes along.... When the
mowers have cleaned the fields, the women and children go out and pick up every
stray sprig of wheat. They go over a ten-acre field and get armfuls of grain.
When they have finished, there is nothing left. ...
...
I see a good deal [of the war] but it is
possible to do that and still not to get in any particular danger. For instance
day before yesterday I went up on a hill just south of the Vesle River and
watched the Americans start up on the slopes leading to the Vesle heights. I
was about a mile away and perfectly safe. I was in an observation post; that is
a little house built in a tree where two soldiers sit day and night watching
for airplanes; watching developments on the enemy side; ascertaining as nearly
as possible the effect of our shell fire on the enemy and observing movements
of men and vehicles across the line. These observers have the most powerful
field glasses made. With it they can detect a man ten miles away. I looked
through this glass and saw a great deal. ...
Yesterday I saw more war than I ever expected I would
see. I was in another observation post north of the Vesle. I saw a German flier
swoop down out of the clouds and attack a string of about eight French
observation balloons. The observers—one to each balloon—dropped through the
bottom of their baskets and came down gently in their parachutes which are
always attached to them. The crews aground began to haul in the balloons but
before they could get them out of danger the Boche had fired two which
descended a whirling mass of flame and smoke. Meantime antiaircraft guns were
spotting the sky with puffs of smoke—bursting shrapnel—hoping to injure the
Boche and damage his machine but to see him pass through the cloud of shrapnel one
would have thought his machine was armor-clad. He disappeared a few moments
later. No one was hurt.
Then I saw several German ammunition dumps up toward the
Aisne explode and send up huge volumes of smoke. Meantime three miles to the
south I cold see the constant flash of our guns which were bellowing away at
the Germans north of the Aisne. The gun flashes seem about like the flash of a
mirror turned for an instant to the sun, only it was as if there were fifty of
these mirrors.
... The people at home however must not get the idea that
the Hun is licked. He has suffered a stinging reverse but he has much fight
left in him yet. When the Allied summer campaign is over the German will be
back a little—but not much—farther than he was before he started his big
offensive on March 21. So you see there is much yet to be done.
The Americans continue to fight with the same spirit as
at first. They are wonders. The other day I saw a bunch of negro laborers
burying 250 Americans on the side of a hill near the village of Sergy. They had
been buried all over the region and the Americans have decided to put all the
dead in groups. The chaps who died here were all from northern Wisconsin and
Michigan. They fought the Fourth [.......] to a finish but paid a high price.
... To cover the front now I have to start at 8 in the
morning; travel 175 miles; return and write some matter for Paris; eat dinner
and then write whatever cable there is. It is by long odds the hardest-working
job I ever saw and I can’t say I am crazy about it. ...
With love,
Dad
Don Martin wrote at length on September 7 about weakening German morale, but at the end he emphasized that the information came from prisoners. Also he proclaimed that the war would not end in 1918 -- that turned out to be wrong, although he would not be there to learn that. His dispatch was published in the Paris
Herald on Sunday, September 8.
Depression of Captured Huns
Is Due to
Losses in All Units
and Disappointment in Hindenburg
Soldiers Begin to Doubt Germany’s Power
and to Believe They Have Been Betrayed
(SPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE HERALD)
By DON MARTIN
WITH THE AMERICAN ARMIES, Saturday
An examination of more than
12,000 German prisoners, taken by the Allies in the last few weeks, and a study
of letters, documents and newspapers found on them, make it possible to get
some insight into the mind of the average German soldier and officer, and some
information concerning the situation in the Boche army. In reaching conclusions
from sources of this kind, it should be borne in mind that many Germans talk
too freely and exaggerate purposely to give wrong impressions, and that others
talk on the theory that they will be treated with kindness if they say things
to please their captors.
One thing stands out most
conspicuously—the German of mid-August is by no means the German of three
months ago. Meekness has replaced superciliousness in some; apology has
supplanted swagger in others; humbleness has taken the place of hauteur in
many.
It is agreed by the Germans
that they have lost the punch they had at the outset of the war. The reason is,
they say, their fighters between the ages of twenty and thirty arte dead or
incapacitated. One officer said: “We have no more soldiers. All the kids do
when a bombardment is going on is to cry. Those who fight are from twenty to
thirty years of age, but they are all dead.” This is, of course, an
exaggeration, but it smacks of the truth.
The morale of the German army is lowering
constantly. The reasons assigned by the prisoners are: The depression caused by
the reverses following the German July offensive, which had been represented as
an operation which would end the war; disappointment in Hindenburg’s prophecy
that the war would end in August; the heavy losses sustained by all units;
insufficiency of food; internal troubles resulting from added restrictions upon
food and other necessities.
Sees Betrayal in Defeat
These essential causes and
other things have lowered the morale noticeably; so the prisoners have stated
and documents have been found which support their declarations. The soldier is
beginning to doubt Germany’s power and is beginning to believe he has been
betrayed. This moral crisis does not show itself either by a feeling of revolt
against the chiefs or intensified hatred of the enemy, but an impassive
acceptance of destiny, whatever it may be. The German soldiers surrender as
soon as they can—that is, those who have lost heart—and feel glad to be out of
the war.
The effectives are very much
below the figures given in the tables of reorganization. As a maximum the
infantry companies have from fifty to sixty bayonets at the opening of an
engagement. This shortage of men is causing the dissolution not only of large
units, but of small units as well. For instance, the 6th Reserve
Division has already been dissolved and the 45th Reserve Division
has likewise been reported broken up. In certain regiments the battalions have
been reduced to three companies. In the 23rd Ersatz the three
companies of each battalion have only from forty-five to fifty men. The 2nd
battalion of the 67th active regiment has been dissolved, the men
being used to fill up two other battalions.
In the 1st Guard
Division the strength of the companies is very low. In addition, certain units
are being created, such as, for instance, the battalion of instruction, in
which there are from 450 to 500 convalescents, telegraphists, artillerymen,
cavalrymen, aviators, etc. They are all being taught. In the 222nd
Division there is a company of orderlies. Reinforcements consist of men of the
younger classes, such as aviation mechanics, railroad employees and zone troops
who are capable of bearing arms.
Fresh Signs of Weakening
To sum up, the German army,
whose outward appearance seemed intact and whose gradual weakening was a matter
of speculation, now is seen to have fissures on its surface which have been
carefully concealed from the world. The appearance of Austrians on the front
and the complete use of the 1919 class, the appearance in certain quarters of
members of the 1920 class, the calling up of the 1921 class and the necessity
of dissolving of skeleton units—all indicate the weakening of the Boche.
All this, it should be borne
in mind, is based on statements of prisoners. How much is authentic and how
much exaggeration it is impossible to state. It is unquestionably true that the
Boche of to-day is not the Samson he was a few months ago. But it would be a
mistake to infer that all his locks have been cut. Two inferences seem fair:
The Boche is either preparing
in some uncanny way for a gigantic assault of some kind or he is weakened
vastly more than even his enemies will believe. But even if he has suffered
tremendous losses and has a weakening morale he still has a vast army and the
Allies have still a big job ahead of them. It is not wise to look for an end of
the struggle too soon; it certainly will not come in 1918.
Don Martin's daily report for Paris for September 7 was published in the Paris
Herald on Sunday, September 8.
Huns Amexes Get Seem Glad
to Be Taken
Prisoners
(SPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE HERALD)
By DON MARTIN
WITH THE AMERICAN ARMIES, Saturday
The German resistance
stiffened last night and to-day on the northern fringe of the heights between
the Vesle and the Aisne, where the Americans are fighting side by side with the
French.
Terrific shelling of the
plateaux and some of the farms and villages marked the day. The Americans
surrounded forty-one Germans—39 men and two officers—and took them all
prisoners. One of them was an artillery observer, who says he is the nephew of
one of the Kaiser’s advisers and grandson of Von Albersleben, one of the famous
generals in the German army of 1870.
This young officer set an
example of superciliousness and Prussian swagger which few could excel. He wore
a monocle and strutted around as if he was in command of the entire army. He
wore the monocle until an American cook told him what he thought of him in very
blunt but very good English. The young German speaks perfect English, and when
the remarks of the American cook sank into his German mentality he removed the
monocle and assumed a somewhat different air.
Albersleben laughed at the
suggestion that the Germans are on the down grade. He said that the withdrawal
all along the line is merely a piece of advanced strategy, and that its full
significance will soon be understood by the Allies. Most of the men taken with
the German officer seemed glad to be in captivity.
The Americans captured a farm early this
morning. In this vicinity the Germans were thrown across the canal. The Germans
shelled the woods and several villages with gas and high explosives. During the
early morning they threw a smoke screen over the Aisne. The significance of
this was not apparent. They evidently have their artillery newly placed and in
full action. Their areas were constantly shelled last night and to-day by the
French and Americans.
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