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United States Engineer Troops In France
By MAJ. GEN. CHARLES M. CLEMENT, U. S. A.
Presented Before Members of the American Society of En
gineers, Philadelphia, Pa.
(Continued from Last Week.)
He said, “You can wander around in
that direction and not go down again.”
Afterward I said, "Major, why did you
have those two orderlies follow us out?"
"Well,” he. .said, “to carry back the fel
low that might be hit.” I saw two shell
holes side by side that were as big as
this room. X am not exaggerating. That
is the kind of shell hole that is put
through that old concrete fort under
which this new fort was being built, and
the courage and the resolution of the
men that did that work and the engineers
who designed it and constructed it is,
to my mind, phenomenal. No wonder the.
French called their engineers “Genie,”
thinking of the “Arabian Nights” and
the genie that came out of the vase and
accomplished all those wonders. They
are the perfection of mathematicians
They have figured out the influence of
the earth on a shell traveling out of the
cannon; how much farther it will shoot
north than south; how much the height
of the moon deflects the shot, and what
is called the ultimate error of the can
non shot is disappearing under their
mathematics. If a commander cannot
point a cannon within ten feet of the
shot he is not counted a success. That is
an engineering triumph and mathemati
cal triumph of the highest degree.
Somebody asked me tonight how they
located the shots, and whether by aero
planes. I said, “Not alone. There are
three ways of doing it —spot flashing,
sound ranging, and then the aeroplane
to check up both.” The most uncanny
thing is sound ranging; it is shooting
around the corner, surely. They have
a very delicately devised wire that is
heated red hot, and so sensitive, that
if you blow your breath on it it goes
out. They put up six or eight of these
wires at different points, all connected
by electricity 'back to the central sta
tion, and then have a moving-picture
machine. When the gun goes off a but
ton is pushed and the moving-picture
machine goes into action, and as the
vibration of that gun roaches each one
of these stations there is a little quiver
in the line that is printed n that film,
and when it comes out it is handed over
to the officer, who goes to a carefully
calculated table and proceeds to locate
that gun by the vibrations taken miles
away from where the recording instru
ment was, transmitted underground by
wires buried six feet and brought back
to this little encasement of his and
printed; and those little strips of paper
come back and locate the gtui 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 on which to locate ft. Be
cause paper expands and contracts, they
make the map of zinc and they cut the
paper in two-inch squares, so that noth
ing in accuracy shall be lost by the ex
pansion or contraction of the paper un
der heat and dampness. They' have n
parabola around it with everything cal
culated, and stretch six strings around
that, 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 ft 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 goes out of business. That
is engineering gain. That is progress
beyond the point where men set up a
right-angled corner to set up a stone
wall to put up a cheap house.
You and I have been taught to believe
that the French are the most 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 nobody here
sings or dances.” And while he was
working in that little room a ship’s
clock struck six bells, and I straight
ened and 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, 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 to you that
I saw nothing to equal the engineering
work that Colonel Snyder has done down
at Augusta; but at one of the French
schools I saw a thousand boys of eighteen
out one morning at drill with ice on the
ground, stripped to the belt, and not a
thing on above their breeches, singing
and working and drilling as if they were
at a Sunday school picnic on the Fourth
of July. I tell you, when we can drill
American boys up to that point—when
they will go out when it is cold enough
to freeze, with ice all around them, and
go to their work without clothes on.
then they will produce results.
They say that the French are anae
mic and tubercular. There are not many
of those now. Man for man, they are
better than the German boys captured
at the Chemin des Dames fight of the
same age. They are healthy and muscu
lar. No effort Is made to make special
ists. They go In for all-round develop
ment. They have learned that special
ists have prolonged this war ana they
are doing away with them. An instruc
tor is detailed to every thirty-two to
forty-eight men who takes them from
the setting-up exercise to the latest type
of machine gun. When a boy has left
that school he has covered the whole
course of Instruction; ho is not a spe
cialist, but a universalist in everything
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, and he does it all. I saw a
man fire eleven shells from a Stokes mor
tar 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 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 Stokes mortar has
TRENCH AND CAMP
a little ordinary shot-gun cartridge at
the bottom of it, and when that drops
into the mortar it hits a pin that sets
off the little percussion cap, and that lit
tle cap fires the shot out of the gun and
then it commences to unwind the paper
fuse that goes out. and when that is un
wound the business begins, and if it un
winds too fast they have a funeral for
the fellow that fires it.
The British engineers have perfected
barrage work. I wish I could show you
a diagram that is issued to an artillery
commander from the chief engineer's of
fice telling him how to put down his bar
rage in a certain fight, and then he cal
culates it out according to ah this mod
ern figuring with regard to artillery
range in away that produces results.
They v'ere successful in their last two
raids because they had invented a new
species of barrage fire which I am not
permitted to say anything about, except
to say that it is the highest kind of en
gineering art, and it rendered the whole,
front absolutely untenable to the Ger
mans. When the British reached their
objective there was not a living boche
nor any to upset their reversing these
entrenchments. What is known as a
consolidation was equally accomplished
by the result of the matheramical accu- '
racy of this new system of barrage work.
You all know, of course, that a barrage
is a line of shell fire timed to fall in a
reasonably straight line. There is a vari
ation, perhaps, of 75 to 100 yards in the
width of that, and that is made inten
sive or light, in accordance as the men
move forward or backward. They have
a system of signalling which is more or
less elaborate, the meaning of which has
to be changed every day to get rid of
the spies; and they have now added to
that the intensity of machine-gun fire in
the much-despised Lewis gun, which in
every army but ours is considered per
fection as a military piece. Our mis
fortune was that when they used them
on the Texas border they furnished us
with condemned ammunition and that
did not work. They use them over there
with good results, an dthey have effec
tively added to the results.
When I was on the American front I
went out and visited the American train
ing 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 anyone. Give the Amer
ican 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 forces. The
Intensity of interest with which those
men of ours—officers and enlisted men
side by side—take up and carry on the
instruction given them is simply wonder
ful to the French and English officers.
The accuracy of their rifle fire is truly
commendable. They are developing that
spirit that must prevail all over in this
war and in this country, that the men
must be taught the whole object of the
attack is to kill. He must be systemati
cally taught that when he sticks his
bayonet in the sack of sand he must
growl like a dog. He does it. I have
seen me nrun 250 yards and stab four
successive rows of dummies, 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 winded. The men
who did this shootirtg had a little bit of
a target, because the range was not
great. They gather those all up and
count the hits, and the fellow that does
not make fifty per cent has to start and
do the work all over.
Somebody asked me today whether en
gineering was dangerous; he was a re
porter on one of the city papers. I said
that the engineering work back of the
salvage dump is not particularly dan
gerous, but if it is the engineer’s duty
to lay out a line of front trenches the
minimum of'loss Is 150 per cent. In other
W'ords, if twenty men ordered to map out
a trench go over the ground with white
tape so that it can be seen at night,
thirty of them will be killed before the
twenty lay the work out. In credit to
the engineer, be it said that there are
two men to go over for every man that
fails. The aeroplane only has them beat
en 15 per cent; 165 per cent of them die.
Aeroplane 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 ts those that go up.
This gives a little idea of the great seri
ousness of this fight.
If you were to walk the streets of
Paris and see three out of five women in
black, ad almost every man wearing
black on his arm and you mingle with
those people, you would find no smiles,
but a stern determination that there can
be but one end to this conflict. Somebody
asked, “Is it true that France is bled
white?" I replied, “Yes, true in one
way; they nearly froze last winter.” In
1916 they had no field 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
to 960 pounds of coal for every month
for a family of four persons. You know
what that means from the little experi
ence we had last week. And that is
all you can get, rich or poor. Yet they
take it stoically. I took luncheon one
day in Paris; it was a meatless day 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 vou.” I said
"Surprising—not funny.” She said, “You
know if sugar was to be bought I could
buy it.” I said, “Yes. I have no doubt
about that.” “But.” she said, “I cannot
buy any sugar, and so I am going to use
yours.” I said, "Now 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 meet this
sacrifice with absolute cheerfulness; they
stand up to it bravely.
I had a young French officer assigned
to me. He was a schoolboy when the
war broke out. He was a private. He
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Club Breakfast
Table de Hote Lunch, SI,OO
Dinner, $1.50
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Music 6:30 to 8 P. M.
Special Rates for Overnight for
Room with or without
Private Bath.
Sunday Evening Concerts.
BEAUTIFUL BALL ROOM.
Just the place to hold Balls, Social
Affairs, etc.
THE PATRONAGE OF THE
ARMY SOLICITED.
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?” 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.
I met a French captain who had three
sons in the army. He was retired and he
cried like a child because he would not
be permitted to fight on. He had already
lost two sons and two brothers, but that
did not count; he wanted to go on “for
the glory of France and the liberty of
the worlCl;” Those are the types of men
we have to light with. We have got to
bring ourselves up to that standard. We
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must make the people of this country
realize that the game is the biggest ever
played, that the stake is life, liberty, and
democracy—the biggest jack-pot that
was ever opened—and we have to stay in
until the other side throws down their
cards and the victory' Is ours. There can
be no doubt about the result if we in
the United States loyally stand by the
government, swallowing ail imperfec
tions.
That there will be some imperfections
is only natural. Let us do all we can
to help send our soldiers across the wa
ter as fast as possible, trusting to luck
that the provisions get over there to take
care of them, realizing that the victory
can come only through man-power and
brain power; that the aeroplane, the hand
grenade, and the bomb are auxiliaries
and auxiliaries only. The French and
the British have learned that the mo
ment a man has to rely on a hand gren
ade, he relies entirely on that and he will
not fight. They have to be taught and
our men have to be taught that there
has been no improvement in military
tactics since old General Forrest, who
(Continued on Page Fourteen)
March 6.
