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September 7, 1918: Don Martin writes home about his 'hardest-working job'

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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