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Show "irair Sl IK ON THE WESTERN FRONT' ) MAJOR GENERAL CHARLES M. CLEMEN! -,'v,i eVtMf of his age I y V.: -.v. . ' ' '-,' A ;'"' Guard of Pan,- h.- ,-; .V;;,,,,,r -k. . (v-,:.'D-W o f'th't Tr-,, "''V' 'v''""ff Major rV " ' ""7;or Sterol w a Lunfr at ' KV Vn",r(:-"'-(-r.nr,.,.V.n,-r,n, rn:;' V 5 4.1 t rar.sej to ru'-l o a A s-""iy. o.-: :r is. 1 h.,d r-f ou: en tv tf (Vtober and 'ei r-v"-". -N.-h i!wwh r.i: t-e :.'..:. to po ar.d ---e to stop and tN-y (, .pt l0 1 V: f..:t-e-. They had thoroughly r-i-v! out. 1: w.,, i- be pul'ed t 5 ' "''"'' h.4 boon jo !-'--" 1 1 : ! !' t: .-vod v.? l 1:! P: 1 hoy t.' j:: t: ' --'.r...-L.i-r ii to on tVa ' !:'4-- : rj: t.n,e .' ...:r:h.::od tht tn- T c"e.l ; c or a.1 ji or1. I h -. :. i;-. , .. ... t b.:: 4; 44:. l .v., i-t ! '.' :r.- b .-j wo- -i-" T isi to cht ' - i ,'av ji-1 .. r.--rr.A- ' ' ' ' -f'sf. yo tb.OV , . 1 Xvtv i. - . ' : : - -- ; t h - c .- :--.r -i'- ro --t to tk r O'" ;'. to do It fo. t- ' t- rr.-.:t br tho Gf :z b4-' !:o:o how v- .? f-l by th Kr::.h-.-.l " " - ;r- -.;. 01 tho prlKMlV 1 : to t 0 Irs .'- J f4-.: :v. -l !. bn.1 'sit ;h - . r.,.'. :oi..y a "-, '-' i'' thV f'" :. tb.A: .- i r.f - i.iir.e .'or i' It 1 ' t- o-o-:.-c. S t':.oy taJte m.-; rr.-r. ir r.-t '.. . " r ! nri I "i i.O'l x 'Ar ao o hl 1 : r- "-'I bv tbo f.-.-e fn- r'- c' c-r b"i. 1 thoro n.'th-si:! n.'th-si:! iN1-'. k. . arb-ty. But l- a-rr.y o.i-r f--l4- rfa-t o'r t:'.ro. "T i. c' T 1 3'.'ir' : t' to '.--.-rM-kr.j . : ''n No. S.i-ii5o. S.i-ii5o. to ('. p a: :i. i o. Sonri-a-i rrt.io ti.o man who po-5 t. t;-r."5 It twit t: ?t wr: (i"vn to that : --x5 t'-.r --n rf ih I'Tfrcr: 1 i t'r.e I'r.tih T'i.'" carried rim b-rr.i c:. ar.1 tho G'rrr.art y;-:?:4V4- a'way rar.t F'a-ch-r. 5o tr." T- a i:rT."it;on on h;rr.. I: . Try rri to r'ra.n b'.m. ba'-5 : a- atf.- to t a T.'M un-w-: h cf."i rrvii a t-. a-1 i -v w; o-t to ri-'b t .-. oh,..-;. b ;t .:. f rf. or5r is to th G--rr.r"- .'.'t t'r.. f Oc:obr 11. In .-.-h the rr:-:h hid lot ui; a r-.-'rr . k::J hro-ic?i th:r own I bar-ir fre fro c-r.mi ai t I ::ke to Vrtow haw this hap- - Ar4 i wr.t o"Jt to e. 4 On c;- way e-:t pa a brtad;r I -ai r. 3 e ur.i-.-grour.d. ' K ("1 viTr.x corrrj rc-n which '- rei,-4 nhrapr.!; h k4 i'-ircom a-.d a dlr.lr.iwm. Em'J t- car.ron ha.i frr.ar.'d all his win- v. v,t .-lb-!"j-.'i bottorr.j t t-.r bott:--. f. in c-n.?r,t. which t'.-o him lirht a-d r''.t4 shock. AftT tlie rtail j Te wer.t on ard movl a:o-.f about m::a tf trer.chu or. '.h duck Virdj a-d iarr.!r.--l -r.Y.-r. ' Ihe rht!rf hid tak-n place and the -.! a.-.d a rgnt abojt the los :s thii barr-a-. He Milt "The t a mJr.t:t aid thirty neoonl. rr.n (tot so r.th,j.i-:i'-r ft f :.v:te that tbv r-i ' 1 ' ' ' Tr. time orjsthl to be f-hortr.ed to on A.'t-r that the time w trter.4. I J ; .t a'I'jde W that to 70-1 that a n-.a.'or gtr..-al la Pf fr:r wir.lr.g to tn.r: i'-h ar.l f ' '.-action from a priva-e '!-)wr i:i f,Tr3 ri.-.V.f. Thl.i cer.oral came from '.re o? the moit til'istrio-js families ' in Er.,:r.1, but ho was w1'r. 10 their v:-polnt nnd he tried to J-if. that In bit miiitary experience. faid. -STireanl. how many di'i ? klil y.,t.rdAv- And the frgcant "-"i. -Fifteen. Mr." That excited v ir.-e.-e't. He t.ai-1. "Bir. I fam0 10 1 'i-rout ar.d I h-rd voices and I 'd. H-j-r.r.der:' and the bbe ':). 'Go to h-!l ' ar.d I threw thr'e '-'rr.r, down." lie pA that without ,:'..-r.n-. The K-r.era! Mid. "That!! trv.d; I :.! r-nd for you in a VV ; !.e,r.-t over there 1 tor,-.., t,,:.ty v-.v. after you t. to r.v. yo-l r. ,-.-!.! ' f '"l0r- A ISiItNh amiy rommamlr hns a prrf-t r'.s-ht to confer a Pis tlngult-hod Pr:v!co me.b.l on nr.y member In h'-i rmy. l-.e h, rlKht to glvo a mhj me.Ul to any msn. 1 !-aTr u parade the: In which twei-.ty men were dec or.o.ed for ecnts which hsd happened within thirty days. Von rouH r-e the in every r.i.in in that hrlirade tbrv Mr their men. their own aso-i aso-i :.lte. c..!i,-J out to be honored In the r.ime rf Kms I'.wrsp by the presentation presenta-tion Of thf?e me. lnts thllt would fro down to their children a.i a dlslln Ktilr-hed honor for bravery In the war. "We have irot to come to It: we I ave cot to set rid of our American prel-.idlce of rew arcing men who do fi.lthrul th'.i.cH. The little Were of brorro i? nothing for the ri?k he rut . but it i? the h'ump of his oounr-'j5 UTroval. an.i t'c.at is tli createM th'.nr; t'r.at his ro.intry c.iji do for him. T- have Ooiiictos pis an art after ou are ciead and buned does n-.t noet tire b:'.'.. It mi:?', be done on the spot, and tl.oe men are cr.eoura;-ed to Ve.!s of valor bv seelnp o'ber men 1 rcvmrtly re-arded for what they have done. On tlie Firinc Linr A:nons tl place that I v isited on the front was Verdun. The loss on b-M!i b.iis wtis apnaillnc and. whiie tht f.eht ahook the trcn-nh of Germany Ger-many to the limit, the men that Krance lot ennnot be replaced. That country for mile;- around la pockmarked pock-marked with yhe'.; holes. I vlilted a f-irt which w.-vs cor.sidrred a rnaster-plc rnaster-plc of modern military enclneertns. built of re-enforced concrete, extend-I:.(t extend-I:.(t maj.y feet ur.der ground, but pura-meied pura-meied into atoms by the German an tillery. and those plucky French .ol-d:rr. .ol-d:rr. while the pieces were coming down over their heads, dug down and built a new fort of rock and granite that In the end held that battle llr.e and won that first for Krance. In this fcrt you might think you were In an anthracite coal mine. It haii artificial ventilation. I was in a hospital there with a better odor than many hospital built on the surface of the ground perfectly pure. In which r.o ray of sunshine ever entered. After we had wandered all through It and up to that time I was the only Amer-iian Amer-iian general officer that had gone down there the commander said he would like to take me up and show me ti e top. tVe climbed up and got out on top. It was pouring down rain. I remember it. because it waa my tlx-tv-eecor.d birthday. He said. "If the sun were slunlng you and I would not live five minutes here, but I guess you are perfectly safe" He said. "You can wander around tn that direction and not go down arrain." Afterward I a'd "Major, why did you have those Iwo orderlies follow us out?" "TVell." he said, "to carry back the fellow that might be hit." I eiw two shell holes side by side ,hat we forty feet across and twenty feet deep. I not exaggerating. Th06e are the kind of shell holes they . ur, rtM concrete fort cut tnrous.i . , und.r which this, new fort waa being b-jct and the courage and the rescv ,utlon of the men that did this work nd th, engineers who designed it and constructed It is. to my mind, phenonv so wonder the French called "eir engineers "Genie." thinking o "h, Arabian Nights" and the genii that came out of the vase and.ccom-' and.ccom-' ,,h.d ail those wonders. They ax. j-,. perfection of mathematicians. They have flared out the influence , . Ih. earth on a shell txaveUng out , he cannon; how much further tt ,., shoot north than south: how " ' eh the height of the moon deflects Te hot andhat is e of the cannon shot 1b ous- milt9 under their mathemaUca. appearing under Tt a commander cannui. .... Juhln ten feet of the spot he Is non within te.i "u-rdV::,erhc:wdr;-iocated th' STot X a" thT ' ; d.lng It-spot-flashing, sound- Vl JZ i then th. airplane to ranging ana unraMS-check unraMS-check both up. The , g thing I- 90un4 i:rPfe,y. They have a verr eeneiUve thal heated red h"t Rn R lt Koe3 "I Do Not Think I Saw a Man in Europe That Had Any Fear of Death. Should You Speak to a Man About the Danger of Death He Looks at You and Smiles" ' THE WESTERN FRONT' t ? ?RAL CHARLES M. CLEMENT f'Q-" -p, , "I Do Not Think I Saw a Man in Europe That Had Any II v. ' ; :" - - Fear of Death. Should You Speak to a Man About the II v' v ; ; , -; - : :i Danger of Death He Looks at You and Smiles" - vims rJir Ki'&Pi v&Mfmfi C. f-a- 'y'lH Hs: ! U '1t : i yr JsP' iTf -J-, ? fourth time I have been wounded. I iSZ: i" -crs -.. '-If if s-t'& ia back !n th- sprip-s" But I r" -V-"Vt-r 'rfiSS -S--I USH&-riif-r. "oc be back, because he win have to fN'-l-:- - CCi- Iracifleutavy. we .ent through and y V q-V p-'' I ' . - f -tV"-: looked at that wreckage. The fight 1 , S.-7-X liours fiJid there -n ere- more than a i-- tl.ousand men hack at that hospital, "The general and I moved along about iwo miles of trenrlie, where all the fighting had taken place.1 wirts at d;fTrr.t points, a'i! rnr!v"ttd back with elertricity to the central station, and thn they have a moving-rlrturo moving-rlrturo machine. N'hen the Kn pus off a button is pushed and the moving-picture machine, poes Into action, and aj the vibration of that g'jn reaches each one of these stations there Is a little quiver !n the line that Is printed on that n!m. and when H cornea out it is haxded over to the officer and he goea to a carefully calculated cal-culated table and proceeds to locate that gun by the vibrations taken miles away from where the recording instrument in-strument .was. transmitted underground under-ground by wires buried six feet and brought back to this little encasement of Mb and printed, and those little strips of paper come back and then he locates the gun that fired that shot; then he proves it by spot-flashing, and as the sound travels from one place to another a number of people push a button and, knowing that sound travels so many meters a minute, they prepare a map to locate that on. Because paper expands and contracts, con-tracts, they make the map of zinc and they cut the paper In two-inch squares, go that nothing in accuracy shall be lost by the expansion or contraction con-traction of the paper under heat and dampness. They have a parabola around it with everything calculated, and they stretch six strings around mat and when the six strings get over the same spot there is the gun. and when the other six strings get over there they are sure it is there, and then they get the airman to fly over it and he can see if they are right, and it Is nine out of ten If they drop a shot over there that that gun goa out of business. The Brave French You and I have been taught to believe be-lieve that the French ar the moat mercurial people on earth. I visited a Frenchman in his fortification home and the map showed it as a "cabaret dugout." I said, "General, why do you call It that?" "Well," he said, "because "be-cause nobody here sings or dances." And while he was working in that little room a ship's clock struck six bells, and I straightened up and I said, "That is a singular sound here." He said. 'That's a touch of home; I am thinking of my wife." He had brought from his home that little ship's clock that would carry him back to Bordeaux, Bor-deaux, and once every hour for a moment his heart went back home and the other fifty-nine minutes It was pounding shells into the boche. I have visited all the training schools or a training school In every army over there. I have already said that I saw nothing equal to the engineering engineer-ing work that Colonel Snyder has done rTwn at Augusta; but at one of the r:cn--h s-hoo I siw a thouanl boys of rlL-htrrn out one morning at drill uith ir nn t'r.c ground, i-trippf! to the bc'.t, and not a thing on atov their b: ecches. sir.cing and working and drilling at if they were al a Sunday ;-rhuol picnic oi. the Fourth of July. I toll you. when we can drill American b-ys up tn that p'-lnt where they will co out when it i.s cold enough to freeze, wit It ice all around them, and go at their work without clothes on then they will produce result. They say that the French are anemic and tubercular. There are not many of those kind now. Man for man they are better than the Gorman boys captured at the Chcmln-des-Dames of the same age. They are healthy and muscular. No effort is made to make specialists. They go in for all-round development. They have learned that specialists have prolonged this war and they are doing away with them. An Instructor is detailed to every thirty-two to forty-eight forty-eight men, who takes them from the f-etttng-up exercises to the latest type of machine un. When a boy has left that school he has covered the whole course of instruction; he is not. a specialist but a universalis! in everything every-thing that pertains to military art. That is one of the lessons that three years of warfare have taught them. It is the man who studies it all that is able to do it all. I saw a man fire eleven shells from a Stokes mortar and had them all in the air at one time before one struck the ground, and not only that, but his assistant trained the gun so accurately that they almost struck in a mathematical line. To do that you have to move your fingers pretty fast to get them out of the road. The shell that goes into a Ptokes mortar has a little ordinary shotgun cartridge at the bottom of it, and when that drops into the mortar it hits a pin that sets off that little percussion per-cussion cap and that lltUe cap fires the shot out of the gun and then it commences to unwind the paper fuse that goes out, and when that is unwound un-wound the business begins, and If it unwinds too fast they have a funeral for the fellow that fires it. American Training School When I was on the American front I visited the American training school that Colonel Upton had put In without sufficient help; he was absolutely working with his own hands with pick and shovel, to get the thing done, and yet producing results far beyond any work I saw of any one. Give the American an opportunity and he "comes across" with whatever has to be done. He takes the three years experience of his brother and pushes it ahead beyond anything he has had. and these schools are the wonder of the Allied forves. The intensity of interest in-terest with whih those men of ours officers and enlisted men side by side take up and carry on the Instruction given them is simply wonderful to the French and English officers. The accuracy of thei- rifie fire is truly commendabie. They are developing devel-oping that spirit that must prevail all over in this war and in this country, that the men must be taught that the whole object of the attack Is to kill. He must be systematically taught that when he sticks his bayonet in the sack of sand he must growl like a dog. He does it. I have seen men run 230 yards and stab four successive rows of dummies. dum-mies. Jump down in a trench six feet deep and with their rifles put eight out of ten shots in the bull's eye. One would think that they would be completely com-pletely winded. The men who did this shooting had a little bit of a target, because the range was not great. They gather all thoso up and count the hits and the fellow that does not make 50 per cent has to start and do the work all over again. Danger. in the Air Somebody has asked me whether engineering was dangerous. I said that the engineering work back of the salvage dump is not particularly dangerous, dan-gerous, but if it is the engineer's duty to lav out a line of front trenches the nummum ol nts i -wj other words, if twenty men, in order to map out a trench, go over the ground with white tape so that it can be seen at night, 30 per cent of them will be killed before the twenty lay the work out- In credit to the engineer, engi-neer, be it said that there are two men to go over for every man that falls. The airplane has them beaten only 15 per cent; 155 per cent of them die. Airplane losses seem very small as they appear in the papers, but there are ten men on the ground for one In the air. Taking the loss of Just those in the air, it is 165 per cent of those that go up. Now this gives you a little idea of the great seriousness of this fight. If you were to walk up th streets of Paris and see three out of five women in black, and most every man wearing black on his arm. and you mingle with those people, you would find no smiles, but a stern determination determina-tion that there can be but one end to this controversy. Somebody asked, "Is it true that France is bled whito?" I replied, Tes, true in one way; they nearly froze last winter. In 1916 they had no fields cultivated. It became necessary to take men from the army and have them go home and plow. They had to make some provision to get coaL They have raised the allowance allow-ance to 960 pounds of coal for every month for a lami'.v. Aid that is all you can get. rich or pot. Tet they take It stoically." I took luncheon one day in Paris. It was a meatless ?ay and I Invited a lady a relative of a friend of mine. We went to a little fish house. I never take sugar in my coffee. She asked me for the sugar and she put it In her pocketbook. She said to me, "I suppose that is funny to you." I said, "Surprising not funny." She said, "Tou know, if sugar wasyto be bought I could buy it." I said, "Tes, I have no doubt about that." "Put,"' she said, "I cannot bay any sugar, and so I am going to use yours." I said. "Xow I know why the waiter when he waits on me dumps the sugar in his pocket." She said. "That is the biggest tip he gets." They met this sacrifice with absolute cheerfulness; they stand up to it bravely. I had a young French officer assigned as-signed to me. He was a schoolboy when the war broke out. He was a private. He is a captain now. He had not smiled in three years, he said. He had not seen his father in a year and a half, and I ran'through to Paris with him. just to let him see his father. He protested that it was not according to his order. When I started he said, "Where are we going?" go-ing?" I said. "You are going to see your father." I took him and he called to see his father and had dinner with him, and the next morning we went back and he said, "That is the first time I have seen my father and mother in two years." And yet he had never been more than fifty miles away. He had seen all the men in Verdun lose their lives, but he had a perfect determination that he would not go back to his profession until this war was won. Human Wreckage I am only going to teli one little incident of the wreckage I saw. While coming in from the battle of Chemln-des-Dames, at a little station on the road a doctor rushed out and waved to the car to stop and then hesitated because he saw a general in it, and I asked "What do you want?"' or rather I had somebody say it iii French. He replied that he had an officer who had been badly wounded and he wanted to have him taken back to a hospital. The trip was about seven miles We took the officer In the car. and as we did so he was about to faint. When he saw who was holding him he said, "This won't do; a first lieutenant cannot be held by a general." I said, "Don't worry about that. Tell us how it happened." He said. "Well, we went up over the top, and there was just one roll on the machine gun and the captain was dead." He began crying. He said. "I am not orvi'ic: for myself but for the eaptaJn; he !eft a wife ar.d three children." chil-dren." He continued, "This is the fourth time I have been wounded. I will be back In the spring." But I " cou'.d read the tag and I knew he will rot be back, because he will have to sacrifice one arm. Ir.cidenta;".;.-, we went through and looked at that wreckage. The fight had not been over more than two hours and there were-more than a thousand men back at that hospital, several miles from the front, under the care of surgeons. Many of them were Americans. Word went through t hat an American general was Toing through, and one doctor from America came back to speak to me. He said: "I am operating on an abdominal case. I must talk to you. I want you to carry the message back over to America Amer-ica that we are not getting operating trarments enough. We have used fif-Ty-f-ur today and it Is only noon, and from now on we will have to u?9 bloody ones." and, he said, "You know all the dangers from that. rSo Fear of Death T do not think I saw a man in Europe Eu-rope that had any fear of death. T have seen men who had fear of being blinded or losing both legs, but I met no man t;:at looked upon death as any terror. The elevation of this war- the comprehension that the liberty of the world is absolutely at stake haj? so raised t lie hearts and minds of the British and French soldiers and our American contingent that there is no thought of death anywhere. Should you speak to a man about the danger of death, he looks at you and smiles. That is the last of the things he thinks about; he gives it no consideration. considera-tion. Day by day he marches by the flower-decked graves along the roadside road-side they are kept decked with flowers flow-ers all the while by the Belgian and French womenand he Is as bright and cheerful as the flowers on those graves. He draws back at the thought of being blinded. The German hate that pours out liquid fire is repulsive to him. but the death that comes in legitimate fighting is an incident of the game of the men that constitute those armies. It was not so at the beginning; be-ginning; it has been a process of education edu-cation until the average soldier in all those forces is fully persuaded that he can look four bodies in the face and get away with the four. I have seen a British sergeant defy four men to come to him with bayonets, bay-onets, and I have seen him disarm them with his naked hand, when he knew a slip of that hand would mean a severe wound if not death to himself. him-self. He was teaching those men to be fearless, and he had to be fearless himself. He kept that up and challenged chal-lenged one fellow to try to go at him in real earnest and he got so angry that I thought he would break his bones. Then the general said -they, would have to stop as he saw they were losing their tempers. I met a French captain who had three sons in the army. He was re-, tired and he cried like a child because he would not be permitted to fight on. Tie had already lost two sons and two brothers, but that didn't count; he wanted to go on "for the glory of France ar.d the liberty of the worM:" Those are the type of men we have to ficrht with. We have got to bring (Uirso'ves up to s'.un.l'ird. |