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AN AMERICAN WOMAN AT T H E FRONT
F r o m the N e w Y o r k Times of M a r c h 2, 1919
IMPRESSIONS OF A R E D CROSS W O R K E R W H O F O U N D W A R V E R Y
DIFFERENT FROM W H A T SHE H A D IMAGINED
The author of this article was one of the first American women
who ivent with the vanguards of the victorious Allies into German
territory after the armistice was signed.
B Y M A R I O N B. C O T H R E N , N U , '09 city. Only long-nosed guns rambling steadily past my door hour
Suppose you lived at F i f t h Avenue and Eighth Street and the
greatest war i n the history of the world was being fought i n Van
Cortlandt Park! How would you feel? What would you think?
Just those twelve miles—two hundred and forty city blocks—back
f r o m the German lines in the T o u l sector, I lived and worked f o r
the Red Cross during a l l those weeks o f the smashing American
offensive. Day a f t e r day I made the rounds of the seven American
hospitals scattered over five miles of French r o l l i n g country.
Occasionally, instead of visiting the sick, I went with newspapers
and cigarettes "up the line" to the boys who were holding and
pushing back the enemy army.
Late each night I plodded through the sticky mud back to my army
billet i n the V i l l a Paulette outside of T o u l . I t was a very luxurious
b i l l e t assigned to me by the Colonel himself when I arrived, the first
woman worker in his hospitals. M y two rooms were really quite
famous—one f o r its high lace canopied bed and the other f o r its green
porcelain stove, a j o y to look upon but a distinct disappointment as
a giver of heat.
A l l this time there was the rumble of artillery i n the distance,
fighting in the air above me, khaki-clad troops everywhere around
me, the suffering of dying men before my eyes. I t was war. I had
seen war in the movies. I had read numberless books on war. Yet
when I was i n the presence of war i t seemed to affect the lives o f
those around me so l i t t l e . I t was so much more a series o f small,
almost unrelated happenings than the immense mass movement I
had pictured.
T o u l went about its workaday tasks just as i f the American A r m y
were not making history in its suburbs. T o be sure the church bells
never rang to t e l l the German airmen " N o w you are flying over
T o u l ! " I t was also true that M i l e . Marguerite always dropped the
dish she was passing when the "alerte" sounded the air r a i d warning.
But after all the little French boys and girls went to school each
morning dressed i n their quaint black smocks. T h e "Reunie," or
the one department store, d i d a thriving business now that i t had the
patronage of our "First Army." The town-crier still announced in
this walled mediaeval city the happenings of the day, and, all the
time, between us and the spiked helmeted thousands there was
nothing but a few miles of i n f a n t r y and artillery. " I n fact," so the
American colonel confided to me, "some days there was just artillery,
but the bodies didn't suspect i t . "
W i t h the night came absolute blackness and under its spell a terror
of the unknown crept over me. Not a light on the street or on an
automobile! Not a ray from a window! Nothing but the dimmed
lanterns o f the M . P.'s as they "passed" me through the gates o f the
after hour, their outlines barely discernible. I felt I could better meet
what the night might bring forth i f only the world wasn't shrouded
in inkiness. Yet starry, moonlight nights and lighted towns meant
air raids with that deafening barrage. A t a l l events, there was
something reassuring to hear through the walls of my room—Mme.
Bertram, my landlady, monotonously reading to her husband
President Wilson's last speech i n L'Est Republican. There was a
certain calmness gained f r o m looking out of my window at the deep
blue sky above. I t at least had not changed.
N e x t morning i t a l l seemed so foolish. There down the Route
Justice came the old bare-headed lattiere driving her ancient horse
and p e d d l i n g m i l k just as she had done each m o r n i n g f o r a score
of years.
Three million Americans i n France! I t meant line after line with
flags flying, music playing, swinging along the white French roads
toward Germany. T h e y might be more grimy perhaps and more
heavily laden than when I saw them manoeuvring at Camp M i l l s .
But that was the impression I had carried overseas w i t h me.
I know now that movements o f troops must be concealed and that
large bodies of marching men bring information to the enemy. Yet
i t was hard to blot out my original picture, even though day after
day the swinging lines dwindled into groups of a few hundred steel
helmeted men, t r u d g i n g along two by two. T h e y carried huge fifty-
pound packs on their backs—that is, the doughboys did. A n d , worn
out by long marches, some would f a l l out of line and stretch them-
selves on the grass much more like tired schoolboys than fierce
soldiers.
O f course there was no music. They didn't even keep step by
singing "Over T h e r e " ; the only songs that I heard were the songs
of our negro troops as they tore d o w n the ruins o f F l i r y and built