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John Doyle writes to
sister, Mrs. Frank Rauen
Plattsmouth
Journal, November 18, 1918
A VERY INTERESTING LETTER FROM
FRANCE
From
"Johnnie" Doyle, an Old Plattsmouth Boy, Who
Has Been in France for Some Time.
Railway Artillery Supply
Depot,
A.E.F., Ordinance Division,
France,
Oct. 20
Dear Sister and Frank
It has been a long
time since I wrote a letter to you, so I will give you a
long letter, in the first place all is well. Maggie
writes often and all is well over there. I tried to get a
leave to go there but at present none of us is allowed
out of France, you know the reason is because we want
every man on the job, until we have completed the rout to
the Kaisers [sic] bunch which is going along
swimmingly, they have decided once more not to go to
Paris for a while yet, the Crown Prince promised them a
great time if they could ever break through and get there
and they were about to accomplish the move at a place
called Chateau Thierry on the river Marne about the
1st of last June, but the Yanks stopped them,
the Yanks were not at Chateau Thierry when the thing
first started, and the French and English were about all
in, the English had lost a lot of their Artillery and
lots of men, the French were exhausted pretty well, when
they called on the Yanks who were on another front, they
didn’t have to call for the Yanks twice, they rushed
there on freight trains, auto trucks, wagons, horse back,
mules, donkeys, shanks mare, marched, run, swam, and in
fact they took every conceivable means to rush there, and
they didn’t get there a moment too soon, well every
company has cooks, tailors, shoemakers etc, in it, but
that day the cooks and shoemakers, and bakers, and
tailors shouldered their guns, rolling pins, pegging
awls, the tailors took their flat irons, and the
consequences were when they got through the Crown Prince
and his bunch of Huns beat a hasty retreat towards
Berlin, and from that day it has been a continuous
retreat for them, the Kaiser cursed the untrained Yankees
that day, and the Kaiser captured a few of them, and just
for to make his people feel better and offset his
murmuring subjects he exhibited the few Yanks he had as
you would wild cats in the circus, the Yanks heard about
that exhibition, and then they swore revenge, and they
surely are getting it, you know all about the various
moves and retreats as well as we do, God bless the
American News Service, they show all, give all, and
describe all before the battle is 24 hours old, we all
feel on easy street now, we have had some sleepless
nights, and more than some have any idea of, for when
they were not fighting you on the field, they would hover
over you during the night trying to find your sleeping
places and trenches to bomb you, we all have bomb proof
trenches for such occasions, a little joke on that
subject will be in order — a while back they bombed us
here where we live at, well the only thing the
air-o-plane hit was a French toilet, well nothing smells
worse than a French Toilet, well the French soldiers and
officers being woke out of their sleep and getting a
whiff of the horrid smell decided the Germans must have a
new brand of gas, so they all put on their gas masks,
after a while us American soldiers went around to see
what damage had been done and we seen the French running
around with their gas masks on and they wondered why we
didn’t have ours on, they tried to tell us to be careful
as the Germans must have dropped a new style of gas
shell, well they thought we were fools, and we thought
the same of them, and after a while we convinced them
that the shells were the same old material that the
Chinese used to load their stinck [sic] pots with
2000 years ago. The French looked a bit sheepish about
the joke for several days after.
I have just
returned from a trip of nine days along the front. I was
up all along the Vosges mountains, and in Alsace Lorraine
and in German Territory, our boys were using an old
German Frontier custom house for a wireless station, the
Vosges mountains surprised me, they have better towns in
the mountains than they have on the plain, the hotels
were all steam heated, electric lights etc, and
scrupously [sic] clean, and the attendants were
the ideal of politeness, in fact they kill you with
kindness, these are the places and the people that France
is so anxious to win back, old Alsace Lorraine, which the
Germans took away from the French in 1870. They hang on
to their old French customs, their language, and their
unexcelled way of dressing, they are really worth
fighting for, up around Belfort and further on towards
the German Frontier I run across lots of Germans, in fact
an old German woman directed me on my last mile of my
trip where the Yankee Artillery were located, the French
soldiers didn’t know and she did and not making any bones
about it, she proudly give me to understand she spoke
German and wanted to know if I could Sprechen Sie
Deutsch. I told her Nicht Ver Steh and we wagged our ears
at each other and smiled, but the little old fat red
faced German woman brought fond memories of another one I
used to know in old Plattsmouth, and I wondered if she
was any relation.
I then went on and
found the lads where my load was going to and delivered
the goods across the German Frontier, we gassed up, but
[sic] some of Germany’s water in the radiator, eat
some of our travel rations and had a smoke, we did all
this so we could say that we had eat, smoked, and fixed
up our trucks in the much talked of Fatherland. On our
way back we stopped in Belfort for the Saturday afternoon
and Sunday morning, everybody was feeling their best for
the newsboys were hollering out all kinds of encouraging
headlines, before I had delivered this stuff to go up in
the Toul sector and deliver some stuff, I was in the
heart of the fighting sector, everything was knocked
down, the fields all torn up, there was our old trenches
just abandoned, the boys had gone over the top a few days
ago. I seen a few of the results in some of our boys’
graves with Khaki [sic] painted crosses on them. When
they are Kahki [sic] painted it means they died in
action, the crosses are always handy, the Chaplain and a
burial party handle that part of the war business, well
at this place I picked up a German machine gun, an
American of the latest model, and one of the French
Chauchats of which the Americans are armed with some, all
kinds of other equipment layed [sic] all around,
the reason of this is when the boys go over the top they
doff everything but their guns and ammunition, and coming
back or digging in they will doff everything but the
celebrated German Luger [sic] revolvers, it is a fact
that when they start in, they often deicide what each one
is going to get, and a German Luger revolver is the
greatest prize for a souvenir a soldier can get, there is
quite a few got Iron crosses, for it is another fact that
the Germans throw them away, and give them away in
disgust, when they see how they have been duped by their
powers that be, some of the Germans talks as good English
as we do, and they tell you straight out that they have
had their fill of this thing, and they all refer to the
Kaisers six sons, none wounded or killed, although the
Kaiser is continuously bellowing in his speeches that
they will lose the last drop of German blood before they
will give up Alsace Lorraine or take a defeat.
Now I must go back
to Belfort in this, I dropped in the Y.M.C.A. and the
place was crowded and I asked the boss how he would like
to display my German machine gun, he jumped at the chance
and loaded me up with cigars for the suggestion, the boys
certainly investigated that gun. They took it apart and
put it together again several times over, then I placed
our latest Heavy Browning machine gun beside it. It
looked like a beautiful strong polished race horse at
side of an old plow horse, our gun is far superior in
shooting, looks, workmanship, and wear and tear, thanks,
many thanks to our great American workmen and our great
American machine shops who turned out several hundred
thousand before the scheduled time. This is where your
money goes to in which you spend for liberty bonds, but
don’t you see the results, why if we got beat we would
never go back, but you see as I always propheisied
[sic], but I know that you often thought I was
simply trying to encourage you, when I got over here
things looked blue enough, last winter was a holy terror,
we didn’t have enough fuel, every one was encouraged to
cut everything down to the minimum in the fuel and eats
line, but thanks to the British they have captured Lille
which means that we can get all the coal we want now,
that place is noted for coal, and we have it, the Yanks
have a large coal area staring them in the face, but they
have a terrible country to fight over, and you know the
Germans have held that for years and have everything
fortified as well as these experts know how to fortify,
but watch, before Christmas, yes before Thanksgiving the
Yanks will have it, they scooped off that great sector
which the Germans had built summer resorts, beer gardens,
etc., because they figured we have held if four years,
and Me and Gott will hold it four more.
The last place I
was in before I got back home was Troyes, there I went to
a Vaudeville and Movie theatre, they had on a Mexican
Border play, when the Yankee cowboys came to the rescue
of the imprisoned American girls, and killed the fancy
looking Mexican bully or outlaw the audience went wild,
then a girl came out dancing and waving that great Crepe
de chine dress, where they throw on butterflies and
flags, etc., from the movie machine, well they showed the
British flag, it got 10 minutes applause, then they
showed Italy, it got about 10 minutes, then they showed
their own. It got about 10 minutes, then the Belgian, it
got about 15 minutes, then they showed the American, they
all stood up at that and went plum bug house and they
were still yelling their lungs out when I was about 8
blocks away, they certainly show their regards and
respect and love to America, the girls flirt and wink and
blink more at an American than all the rest put together,
and the odd part of it all is, all the rest of the bunch
seem to pick up their lingo better than we do, us fellows
can’t Polly Vo Francais at all like the rest of them, it
is comical to listen to a genuine Cockney Englishment
[sic] talk French, and the Irishman is worse.
You know in order
to talk French the proper way you must wag your ears, and
wave your hands at an awful slant up behind your ears
just like a Jew does when he tells his son to pull down
the blue shade. I want to sell a green suit, and all the
girls carry a little French-English dictionary, and it
has all kinds of little short sentences, so when they
pass you they will say, Kiss me quick, and in the morning
they will pass you and say, Good night, Hello baby, and a
thousand other remarks, these girls are all good girls,
but is a great national custom to flirt, but they pull
this stuff off a thousand times oftener with the Yanks
than any other, furthermore, they are learning all the
American catchy songs, they don’t sing others, at least I
never hear them, I will say they sing Tipperary, but that
is the only one, and the biggest reason of that is we
were not here when that song was so popular, they show
their great love for America above all others and make no
bones about it, the kids are all trained to salute
American soldiers, even the smallest little things are
trained, and the very military way they do it is a
caution.
Then in the
restaurant we have lots of fun, they are always harping
about where is your bread ticket, well Americans don’t
think of such small things. You are supposed to go some
place and get a bread ticket, the residents get a book
for the month for each person. The old restaurant keeper
and me got in a good natured wrangle because he didn’t
want to give me bread, well a good looking dame sitting
at the same table finally handed me one out of her book
and then I proceeded to monge {sic, correct
spelling is "mange"}, which means to eat,
and the eating was fine, it would do you good to see the
French eat these days, no matter how good looking they
dig in and devour a meal like they meant business, they
don’t have a morsel on their plate, and take particular
pains to wipe off the plate with a piece of bread. This
is in every individual case, they are trained
[illegible] to do this. I notice they do and I
have seen doctors and nurses and pretty girls do it, they
all lick off the tips of their fingers so as to
furthermore guarantee that not a taste gets wasted, they
pay no attention to you as you sit across the table when
pulling off these stunts, don’t forget they have their
table napkins and they well know how to use them and they
have a million beautiful table manners. I just mention
these little things because you won’t see one of our dear
Yanks girls licking her fingers at the table. All those
funny dressed girls and boys and men and women who we see
pictured in the American newspapers and who are termed
greenhorns, I see on the trip through the Vosges. They
have the wooden shoes we make so much fun of, but they
don’t wear them on all occasions. They wear pretty shoes
to their weddings, parties, etc., and from my
observations they would be fools if they didn’t wear high
wooden shoes when around their daily work, for most all
of them have the barn on one end of the house, and it is
the height of one of the mountain farmers ambition and
all other French farmers to get a mountain of cow manure
outside of his house, the seepage causes terrible dirty
mud, hesto presto, consequently the wooden shoes,
furthermore on wet and muddy days in the fields where
they work the wooden shoe is the only thing to have. Then
you see the man with the funny-looking pants and a red
sash or other color tied around the waist, and a red cap
which makes them look like gypsies, and all Frenchmen
wear a moustache, they say a man isn’t a man who doesn’t
wear one but Yanks are noted for not wearing one to
offset dirt and germs etc, let alone having it full of
soup and chewing tobacco, and still we make the hit with
the girlies, but take it all in all the French are
wonderful people, I have seen terrible old men and women,
and thousands of the prettiest girls plowing, haying,
hoeing, reaping, herding cows and sheep, picking grapes
etc., all the fighting men gone to the font, all soldiers
graves buried in the different fields where the fighting
has been , are kept up by the people who own the land,
they are decorated with natural and beaded flowers and
with a French flag. Last decoration day we Americans went
all over our different localities and hunted up the
French graves and placed on each one an American flag,
each grave has a little rustic fence around it, the
different farmers view with each other who has the best
kept Poilus grave (Poilu means soldier).
I have written you
this big letter to make up for lost time, send it on to
Lillie and Eva when you have read it. I nearly forgot to
congratulate Lily and her hubby about the baby, more
power to them, hoping the next will be twins, I have sent
Eva’s letter to Maggie and she will send the baby some
little present. Eva bravely keeps up her interesting
newsy letters. Lily is now a busy housekeeper, but they
are getting there, which one is next, glad to hear Pete
is still on deck, he must have come from county Kerry, an
Irishman once told me the people from Kerry were never at
home, they were always roaming about, tell Rose I hope
she is well with her baby Dorothy, and the nurse is
naturally on the job these days, and last but not least
Maggie, I will never invite her to my home when she is on
her wedding trip if she doesn’t write to me. Some one
told me she don’t know how, and I won’t believe it, she
will have to go some though to beat Lillie and Eva, that
is how Lillie won such a nice husband I believe, writing
nice letters, she certainly captivated me. Enough.
Write soon, love to all.
JOHN DOYLE
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