Out To Win. Coningsby Dawson
the tremendous cheering of the crowd. Quite respectable citizens had climbed lamp-posts and railings, and were waving their hats. I caught the words that were being shouted, "Are we downhearted?" Then, in a fierce roar of denial, "No!" It was a wonderful ovation—far more wonderful than might have been expected from a people who had grown accustomed to the sight of troops during the last three years. The genuineness of the welcome was patent; it was the voice of England that was thundering along the pavements.
I was anxious to see the quality of the men which America had sent. They drew near; then I saw them plainly. They were fine strapping chaps, broad of shoulder and proudly independent. They were not soldiers yet; they were civilians who had been rushed into khaki. Their equipment was of every kind and sort and spoke eloquently of the hurry in which they had been brought together. That meant much to us in London-much more than if they had paraded with all the "spit and polish" of the crack troops who led them. It meant to us that America was doing her bit at the earliest date possible.
The other day, here in France, I met an officer of one of those battalions; he told me the Americans' side of the story. They were expert railroad troops, picked out of civilian life and packed off to England without any pretence at military training. When they were informed that they were to be the leading feature in a London procession, many of them even lacked uniforms. With true American democracy of spirit, the officers stripped their rank-badges from their spare tunics and lent them to the privates, who otherwise could not have marched.
"I'm satisfied," my friend said, "that there were Londoners so doggone hoarse that night that they couldn't so much as whisper."
What impressed the men most of all was the King's friendly greeting of them at Buckingham Palace. There were few of them who had ever seen a king before. "Friendly—that's the word! From the King downwards they were all so friendly. It was more like a family party than a procession; and on the return journey, when we marched at ease, old ladies broke up our formations to kiss us. Nice and grandmotherly of them we thought."
This, as I say, I learnt later in France; at the time I only knew that the advance-guard of millions was marching. As I watched them my eyes grew misty. Troops who have already fought no longer stir me; they have exchanged their dreams of glory for the reality of sacrifice—they know to what they may look forward. But untried troops have yet to be disillusioned; dreams of the pomp of war are still in their eyes. They have not yet owned that they are merely going out to die obscurely.
That day made history. It was then that England first vividly realised that America was actually standing shoulder to shoulder at her side. In making history it obliterated almost a century and a half of misunderstanding. I believe I am correct in saying that the last foreign troops to march through London were the Hessians, who fought against America in the Revolution, and that never before had foreign volunteers marched through England save as conquerors.
On my recovery I was sent home on sick leave and spent a month in New York. No one who has not been there since America joined the Allies can at all realise the change that has taken place. It is a change of soul, which no statistics of armaments can photograph. America has come into the war not only with her factories, her billions and her man-power, but with her heart shining in her eyes. All her spread-eagleism is gone. All her aggressive industrial ruthlessness has vanished. With these has been lost her youthful contempt for older civilisations, whom she was apt to regard as decaying because they sent her emigrants. She has exchanged her prejudices for admiration and her grievances for kindness. Her "Hats off" attitude to France, England, Belgium and to every nation that has shed blood for the cause which now is hers, was a thing which I had scarcely expected; it was amazing. As an example of how this attitude is being interpreted into action, school-histories throughout the United States are being re-written, so that American children of the future may be trained in friendship for Great Britain, whereas formerly stress was laid on the hostilities of the eighteenth century which produced the separation. As a further example, many American boys, who for various reasons were not accepted by the military authorities in their own country, have gone up to Canada to join.
One such case is typical. Directly it became evident that America was going into the war, one boy, with whom I am acquainted, made up his mind to be prepared to join. He persuaded his father to allow him to go to a Flying School to train as a pilot. Having obtained his certificate, he presented himself for enlistment and was turned down on the ground that he was lacking in a sense of equipoise. Being too young for any other branch of the service, he persuaded his family to allow him to try his luck in Canada. Somehow, by hook or by crook, he had to get into the war. The Royal Flying Corps accepted him with the proviso that he must take out his British naturalisation papers. This changing of nationality was a most bitter pill for his family to swallow. The boy had done his best to be a soldier; he was the eldest son, and there they would willingly have had the matter rest. Moreover they could compel the matter to rest there, for, being under age, he could not change his nationality without his father's consent. It was his last desperate argument that turned the decision in his favour, "If it's a choice between my honour and my country, I choose my honour every time." So now he's a Britisher, learning "spit and polish" and expecting to bring down a Hun almost any day.
One noticed in almost the smallest details how deeply America had committed her conscience to her new undertaking. While in England we grumble about a food-control which is absolutely necessary to our preservation, America is voluntarily restricting herself not for her own sake, but for the sake of the Allies. They say that they are being "Hooverized," thus coining a new word out of Mr. Hoover's name. Sometimes these Hooverish practices produce contrasts which are rather quaint. I went to stay with a friend who had just completed as his home an exact reproduction of a palace in Florence. Whoever went short, there was little that he could not afford. At our meals I noticed that I was the only person who was served with butter and sugar, and enquired why. "It's all right for you," I was told; "you're a soldier; but if we eat butter and sugar, some of the Allies who really need them will have to go short." A small illustration, but one that is typical of a national, sacrificial, underlying thought.
Later I met with many instances of the various forms in which this thought is taking shape. I was in America when the Liberty War Loan was so amazingly over-subscribed. I saw buses, their roofs crowded with bands and orators, doing the tour of street-corners. Every store of any size, every railroad, every bank and financial corporation had set for its employés and customers the ideal sum which it considered that they personally ought to subscribe. This ideal sum was recorded on the face of a clock, hung outside the building. As the gross amount actually collected increased, the hands were seen to revolve. Everything that eloquence and ingenuity could devise was done to gather funds for the war. Big advertisers made a gift of their newspaper space to the nation. There were certain public-spirited men who took up blocks of war-bonds, making the request that no interest should be paid. You went to a theatre; during the interval actors and actresses sold war-certificates, harangued the audience and set the example by their own purchases.
When the Liberty War Loan had been raised, the Red Cross started its great national drive, apportioning the necessary grand total among all the cities from sea-board to sea-board, according to their wealth and population.
One heard endless stories of the variety of efforts being made. America had committed her heart to the Allies with an abandon which it is difficult to describe. Young society girls, who had been brought up in luxury and protected from ugliness all their lives, were banding themselves into units, supplying the money, hiring the experts, and coming over themselves to France to look after refugees' babies. Others were planning to do reconstruction work in the devastated districts immediately behind the battle-line. I met a number of these enthusiasts before they sailed; I have since seen them at work in France. What struck me at the time was their rose-leaf frailness and utter unsuitability for the task. I could guess the romantic visions which tinted their souls to the colour of sacrifice; I also knew what refugees and devastated districts look like. I feared that the discrepancy between the dream and the reality would doom them to disillusion.
During the month that I was in America I visited several of the camps. The first draft army had been called. The first call gave the country seven million men from which to select. I was surprised to find that in many camps, before military training could commence,