{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_34440/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_34440","id":"gutenberg_34440","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34440","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: History - American","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: History - Warfare","Category: Religion/Spirituality","World War I","World War, 1914-1918 -- Jews"],"text":"Produced by Moti Ben-Ari and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Logo of the MacMillan Company]\n\nTHE MACMILLAN COMPANY\nNEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO . DALLAS\nATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO\n\nMACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED\nLONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA\nMELBOURNE\n\nTHE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA. LTD.\nTORONTO\n\n\n[Illustration: A group of Jewish welfare workers at Le Mans, France, in\nMarch 1919. From left to right, George Rooby, Julius Halperin, Frank M.\nDart, Chaplain Lee J. Levinger, Adele Winston, Charles S. Rivitz, David\nRosenthal and Esther Levy.]\n\n\n\n\nA Jewish Chaplain in France\n\nBY\nRABBI LEE J. LEVINGER, M.A.,\nExecutive Director Young Men's Hebrew Association, New York City,\nformerly First Lieutenant Chaplain United States Army\n\nWITH A FOREWORD BY\nCYRUS ADLER, Ph.D.,\nPresident of Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning,\nPhiladelphia\n\nNew York\nTHE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n1921\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT 1921,\nBY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.\n\nSet up and printed. Published October, 1921\n\n\n\n\nTO A GOOD SOLDIER\nWHO SENT ME TO FRANCE\nAND BROUGHT ME BACK AGAIN--\nMY WIFE\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD\n\n\nThe tendency to \"forget the war\" is not admirable. Such an attitude is\nin effect a negation of thought. The agony which shook mankind for more\nthan four years and whose aftermath will be with us in years to come\ncannot be forgotten unless the conscience of mankind is dead. Rabbi\nLevinger's book is the narrative of a man who saw this great tragedy,\ntook a part in it and has thought about it.\n\nIn all the wars of the United States Jews participated, increasingly as\ntheir numbers grew appreciably. They served both as officers and\nprivates from Colonial days. But not until the World War was a Rabbi\nappointed a Chaplain in the United States Army or Navy for actual\nservice with the fighting forces. President Lincoln appointed several\nJewish ministers of religion as chaplains to visit the wounded in the\nhospitals, but the tradition of the Army up to the period of the Great\nWar, rendered the appointment of a Rabbi as chaplain impossible. The\nchaplain had been a regimental officer and was always either a\nProtestant or a Catholic. The sect was determined by the majority of the\nregiment. When the United States entered the Great War, this was clearly\nbrought out and it required an Act of Congress to render possible the\nappointment of chaplains of the faiths not then represented in the body\nof chaplains. Twenty chaplains were thus authorized of whom six were\nallotted to the Synagogue the remainder being distributed among the\nUnitarians, who were not included in the Evangelical Churches, and the\nother smaller Christian sects which had grown up in America.\n\nIn order to meet the requirements of the War Department and in\nconsonance with the spirit of unity which the war engendered, it was\nnecessary for the Jewish organizations to create a body which could sift\nthe applications for chaplaincies and certify them to the War\nDepartment, as being proper persons and meeting the requirements of the\nlaw of being regularly ordained ministers of religion.\n\nJudaism in America is far from being a united body. Its differences may\nnot be such as rise to the dignity of separate sects but they are\nconsiderable in belief and even more pronounced in practice. Membership\nin the various Rabbinical and synagogue organizations is voluntary and\neach synagogue is autonomous. In the face of the awfulness of the war,\nthese differences seemed minimized and through the cooeperation of all\nthe Rabbinical associations and synagogue organizations, a Committee was\ncreated under the general authority of the Jewish Welfare Board which\nexamined the credentials of all Jewish candidates for chaplaincies and\nmade recommendations to the War Department. So conscientiously did this\nCommittee perform its duties that every Rabbi recommended as a chaplain\nwas commissioned.\n\nAs the law exempted ministers of religion and theological students, no\nperson could be drafted for a chaplaincy. Every clergyman who served was\na volunteer. It is therefore greatly to the credit of the Jewish\nministry in America that one-hundred and forty men volunteered for the\nservice. As there are probably less than four hundred English speaking\nRabbis in the United States, many of whom would have been disqualified\nby the age limit and some by their country of origin, the response of\nthe American Rabbinate to this call, is a most gratifying evidence of\ntheir patriotism and of their sense of public service.\n\nRabbi Levinger's narrative is his own, in the main and properly enough a\npersonal one, but it is representative of the work of some thirty men\nsome of whom ministered to the troops who did not go abroad whilst\nothers had the opportunity of being in the midst of the Great Adventure.\nEvery one who saw the troops overseas, could not doubt the real service\nof the chaplain or the appeal that religion made to the men in uniform.\nHowever the armchair philosophers may have viewed the war, it\nstrengthened the faith of the men who were engaged; hundreds of\nthousands of young men turned to the chaplain who would have been\nindifferent to him at home. That this was true of Jewish young men is\ncertain and if there has been a reaction on the part of these young men\nwho returned from the war, let it be blamed not so much upon religion,\nas upon the disappointment in the soldiers' minds at the attitude of the\nmillions of their fellow citizens who remained at home and who want to\n\"forget the war.\" The soldier who came back and found that his fellow\ncitizens had their nerves so over-wrought by reading of the war in\nnewspapers that they immediately entered upon a period of wild\nextravagances and wilder pleasure, might very well have had his faith,\nnewly acquired if you choose, shaken by this evident lack of seriousness\non the part of his fellow countrymen.\n\nI shall not commend Rabbi Levinger's book to his readers, because if the\nbook does not commend itself, no approbation will. As an officer of the\nJewish Welfare Board whose purpose was to join with other organizations\nin contributing to the welfare of the American soldiers and sailors and\nparticularly to provide for the religious needs of those of the Jewish\nfaith, I want to express the obligations of the Board to the Rabbis who\nwithout experience or previous training for the purpose, entered upon\nthis service and carried it through with distinction. Had it not been\nfor them, the overseas work of the Board would have been comparatively\nlimited and many a Jewish boy would have been deprived of the comforts\nand solace of his religion.\n\nI cannot help but think that the chaplain himself derived much benefit\nfrom his service. In sections of the synagogue, as I believe in sections\nof the church, men are on many occasions a minority in the congregation\nand ministration is largely to women and children. It meant something\nfor the chaplain to have great congregations of men, and of young men at\nthat, and I am inclined to think hardened his mental and even spiritual\nfiber. It emphasized too the importance of emotion and sentiment as\nagainst mere rationalism. The worship meant more than a preachment, and\nsympathetic human contact for a minute was worth a barrel of oratory.\n\nThe fine spirit of liberality which grew up among the chaplains of the\nvarious faiths, reflecting as it did the comradeship of the men\nthemselves, should not and will not be lost. The brotherhood of man will\nbe a mere abstraction until individual men can act as brothers to one\nanother. The ministers of religion, if they have any God-given mission\nabove all others, surely have that of leading men, however different\ntheir physical and spiritual equipment, into the bonds of a common\nbrotherhood. By this way and this way alone will mankind arrive at\nlasting peace.\n\nCYRUS ADLER.\nOctober 19, 1921.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThis book is the result of the profound conviction that we are\nforgetting or ignoring the lessons of the World War to Israel, America\nand humanity. During the war such words as morale, democracy,\nAmericanism, became a sort of cant--so much so that their actual content\nwas forgotten. Now that the war is over and their constant repetition is\ndiscontinued, the grave danger exists that we may lose their very real\ninfluence.\n\nThese personal experiences and conclusions worked out by an army\nchaplain as a result of his overseas service may have some historical\nvalue also, especially as the same ground has not yet been covered by\nany Jewish chaplain or welfare worker in the American Expeditionary\nForces. The role played by Jews in the army and navy of the United\nStates and the Jewish contribution to the morale of the forces overseas\ndeserve preservation, both as a reminder to ourselves and to the nation.\n\nWhen the possibility of this book was first discussed in Paris with the\nlate Colonel Harry Cutler, Chairman of the Jewish Welfare Board, he\nspoke of writing a foreword for it. Since his lamented death, Dr. Cyrus\nAdler, his successor as acting Chairman, has consented to fulfill the\nsame friendly task. In addition to Dr. Adler, I acknowledge my great\nindebtedness to Mr. Harry L. Glucksman, Executive Director of the Jewish\nWelfare Board, for giving me full access to their records; to Mr. John\nGoldhaar for his personal reminiscences of the welfare work overseas; to\nCaptain Elkan C. Voorsanger for the invaluable suggestions based upon\nhis vast personal experiences; to Justice Irving Lehman, President of\nthe Young Men's Hebrew Association, for his encouragement and friendly\nadvice; to a host of coworkers and friends in both France and America\nfor the brilliant deeds and cordial comradeship which are here embodied;\nand finally to my secretary, Miss Hattie Tanzer, for her invaluable\nassistance in seeing the book through the press.\n\nMuch of the material used here has already been published in the form of\narticles appearing at various times in the _American Hebrew_, _American\nIsraelite_, _Biblical World_, _B'nai B'rith News_, _Hebrew Standard_,\n_Jewish Forum_ and _Reform Advocate_.\n\nLEE J. LEVINGER.\nNew York, May, 1921.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n  CHAPTER                                             PAGE\n\n     I. THE CHAPLAIN'S FUNCTION                          1\n    II. THE JEWISH HOLYDAYS OF 1918 IN THE A. E. F.     10\n   III. AT THE FRONT WITH THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION   27\n    IV. AFTER THE ARMISTICE                             52\n     V. AT THE AMERICAN EMBARKATION CENTER              69\n    VI. THE JEWISH CHAPLAINS OVERSEAS                   81\n   VII. THE JEWISH WELFARE BOARD IN THE A. E. F.        92\n  VIII. THE JEW AS A SOLDIER                           114\n    IX. JEW AND CHRISTIAN AT THE FRONT                 132\n     X. THE RELIGION OF THE JEWISH SOLDIER             145\n    XI. PREACHING TO SOLDIERS                          160\n   XII. MORALE AND MORALS                              170\n  XIII. THE MORAL GAIN AND LOSS OF THE SOLDIER         190\n   XIV. THE JEWISH SOLDIER AND JUDAISM                 205\n    XV. THE JEWISH SOLDIER AND ANTI-SEMITISM           214\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE CHAPLAIN'S FUNCTION\n\n\nIn giving the story and the opinions of a Jewish chaplain in the\nAmerican Expeditionary Forces, some statement is necessary of the work\nof the chaplains as a whole. Chaplains are an essential part of the\norganization of a modern army and it is notable that General Pershing\nrepeatedly requested that the number of chaplains be doubled in the\nforces under his command. Hardly a narrative of soldiers' experiences\nexists without due place being given to the chaplain. In every army in\nFrance, chaplains were frequently cited for heroism and in innumerable\ninstances suffered and died with the men in the ranks.\n\nThere are two popular impressions of the purpose of the chaplain in the\nmilitary service; the one sees him as a survival of mediaevalism,\nblessing the weapons of the men at arms; the other welcomes him as a\nfaint harbinger of a dawning humanitarianism, one of the few men in an\narmy who does not have to kill, but is there to save. Some people think\nof the physician and chaplain as having non-military work to do, as\nbeing a kind of concession to the pacific spirit of our generation.\n\nThe actual work of the chaplain is quite as unknown to the general\npublic. People wonder what he does between weekly sermons, much as they\nwonder what the minister or rabbi does during the six and a half days a\nweek that he is not preaching. In fact, I have been greeted with frank\nor hidden incredulity whenever I admitted that in the army I used to\npreach up to fifteen times a week, but never had time to write a sermon.\nPeople wonder sometimes whether the soldiers and sailors can bear so\nmuch preaching, sometimes what else they demand of the chaplain. In\nfact, to the non-military mind the whole subject seems shrouded in\nmystery.\n\nTo the military man the subject is extremely simple. There is no mystery\nabout it. The chaplain is in the army as the physician is, as the\nthousands of other non-combatants are, for a strictly military purpose.\nIt happens that the non-combatants may use non-military methods. One may\ndrive a locomotive, another carry a stretcher, another sit in an office\nand make out papers. All are essential to the military machine; none is\nin the service for any special humanitarian purpose; none is present as\na survival of mediaevalism, but all to take part in the grim conflict of\nthe twentieth century. The work of a physician in the military service\nis the very utilitarian one of saving men's lives and returning them to\nthe front. The work of a chaplain is the equally essential and practical\none of stimulating the morale of the troops.\n\nMany factors bear upon the morale of a body of men,--their physical\nenvironment, the strength and spirit of their individual units, the\ntemper and ability of their leaders. In our army we were very fortunate\nin the activity of various civilian organizations which labored among\nthe men in the service with the backing of our entire citizenry, or at\nleast of large and influential groups. The home service of the Red Cross\nand other non-military organizations was of great importance in keeping\nup the morale of the families left behind and through them of the men\noverseas. These important organizations, however, were under the\nhandicap of doing civilian work among soldiers--a handicap whose\nseriousness only a soldier himself can ever realize. Some months after\nthe war was over, the army recognized its obligation by appointing\nmorale officers for both larger and smaller units, with others under\nthem to supervise athletics, entertainment, and the like. The civilian\norganizations then conducted their activities under the orders of the\nmorale officer.\n\nBut nearest of all to the men, because themselves a part of the actual\nmilitary machine, were their own chaplains. The chaplain was under the\nsame orders as the men, took the same risk, wore the same uniform, and\nnaturally was regarded in every way as one of their own. I have even\nheard old army men scorning the new advances of all these new war-time\nsocieties. \"We have our own chaplain,\" they said, \"He looks after us all\nright.\"\n\nThe chaplain was first the religious guide of his men. He knew how to\ntalk to them, for talking, not preaching, was the usual tone of the army\nor navy chaplain. He knew how to speak their own \"lingo,\" slang and all.\nHe knew the spiritual appeal which was most needed by these boys,\ntransplanted, with all their boyishness, into the deep realities which\nfew men have had to face. He knew their boyish shyness of emotion, but\nwith it their deep, immediate need of such emotions as the love of home\nand God, to sustain them amid dangerous hours of duty and tempting\nhours of idleness. This religious need alone would have been enough work\nfor the chaplain, even with the intended increase in numbers to three\nper regiment, or one chaplain for every twelve hundred men. The need for\nreligion was evident in the training camp, the hospital, the transport,\nthe trenches; it was evident everywhere, and the chaplain must be\neverywhere to satisfy it.\n\nBut in addition the chaplain had much welfare work of a more general\nkind to transact in connection with the various welfare agencies. One\nman wanted advice about getting married before leaving for the front;\nanother had trouble at home and desired a furlough; another found\nhimself misplaced in his work and would like a transfer. A Jewish boy\ncame in to ask that a letter be written to his pious father; the old man\nhad not wanted him to enlist, but would feel better if he knew there was\na rabbi in the camp. Another had a request for a small service (a\nminyan) that he might say the memorial prayer on the anniversary of his\nfather's death. And still another presented a letter from his home\ncommunity, for he was a fine musician and wanted to help out at a\nconcert or a \"sing.\"\n\nThe many requests for service and the occasional offers of service made\nthe circuit constantly from a possible teacher to a number of boys with\ndefective English, from a potential comedy team to a crowd of eager\nlisteners, from a timid boy with personal troubles to their remedy,\neither by a change in circumstances or by convincing the boy himself.\nSometimes a complaint of religious prejudice had to be adjusted which\nmight work grave harm in a company unless it were investigated and\neither proved groundless or remedied.\n\nIn a later chapter I shall have an opportunity to go into this more\ndeeply. All that I want to bring out here is the important and usually\nmisunderstood fact that American boys are restive under authority. They\nobject vigorously to the domination of another's mind over theirs. And\nthis objection too often took the form of bitter resentment against\ntheir officers. Therefore the final and most delicate work of the\nchaplain was to befriend the enlisted men against the oppression of\ntheir natural enemies and tyrants, the line officers. The army often\nreminds one of a school, the men are so boyish. In this regime of\nstringent rules which must be constantly obeyed, of short periods of\nintense and jovial recreation, of constant oversight by authority, the\naverage enlisted man regarded his commanding officer much as the average\nsmall boy regards his school teacher, from whom he flees to a parent for\nsympathy.\n\nThat role of sympathetic parent was precisely the one which the chaplain\nwas called upon to play for these boys in uniform. Not that he believed\neverything he was told, or took sides unfairly, or was always against\nauthority. Simply that any boy could talk to him, as he could only to\nthe exceptional commanding officer, and that every boy was sure that the\nchaplain would help him if he could. Being himself an officer, the\nchaplain could talk to officers more freely than any soldier could. And\nnot being a line officer, he did not himself issue commands to any one\nexcept his own hard-worked orderly or clerk.\n\nThus the chaplain was fortunately placed. If he was even partially\ncongenial, he was the one man in the army who had not an enemy high or\nlow. The soldier looked to him for friendly aid. The officer referred to\nhim as the great cooeperating factor in building up the spirit of the\ntroops.\n\nDuring the stress of actual warfare the work of the chaplain changed in\ncharacter though not in purpose. At the front the chaplain was with his\nboys. During a \"push\" he took his station at the first-aid post and\nworked from there as the first place to meet the wounded and dying who\nneeded his physical or spiritual aid. He stood beside the surgeon on the\nbattle field, he was with the stretcher-bearers searching for wounded\nand bringing them to safety. He rode from post to post with the\nambulance driver, or tramped up to the trenches with a ration party. And\nwherever he went he was welcomed for his presence and for the work that\nhe tried to do.\n\nAfter a battle, when the men retired to rest and recuperate, the\nchaplain had to remain behind. He stayed with a group of men for the\nlast terrible task of burying the dead. And when, that sad duty over, he\nreturned to the troops in rest, he could not yield for a time like the\nothers, to delicious languor after the ordeal of the battle field,\nhospital and cemetery. Then the chaplain must take up his round of\nduties, knowing that after the battle there is many a prayer to be said,\nmany a hospital to be visited, many a soldier to be befriended. His task\nhas just begun.\n\nThe military object of the chaplain is clear, to stimulate the morale of\nthe men. But his methods were most unmilitary. Instead of reminding the\nmen of the respect due him as an officer, the wise chaplain took his\nsalutes as a matter of course and tried to draw the men personally, to\nmake them forget all about military distinctions when they came to talk\nto him. The minute a chaplain insisted upon his rank as an officer, he\nlost his influence as a minister. Rank was useful to the chaplain in so\nfar as it gave him free access to the highest authorities; it became the\ngreatest obstacle to his work whenever the boys began to talk to him as\n\"Lieutenant\" or \"Captain\" instead of \"Father\" or \"Chaplain.\" In the\nmilitary as in the civil field the religious message can come only by\npersonality, never by command.\n\nThe chaplain appealed for the men whenever he felt that the appeal was\njustified and had some chance of success, but never when it would be\nsubversive of military discipline. He remembered always that he was in\nthe army, a part of a great military machine, and that his presence and\nhis work were to make the men better, not worse soldiers. He met the men\npersonally, with their various needs and appeals, and often his best\nwork was accomplished in short personal interviews, which would not look\nat all imposing on a monthly report, but which made better soldiers or\nhappier men in one way or another. He encouraged every effort at\nrecreation for the men, and often took part in these efforts himself.\nThis last applies especially in the navy, where the chaplain aboard ship\nis the whole staff for religious, recreational, and welfare work.\n\nIn the main the work of the chaplain differed little, whatever his\nreligion might be. He was first of all a chaplain in the United States\nArmy, and second a representative of his own religious body. That means\nthat all welfare work or personal service was rendered equally to men of\nany faith. The only distinction authorized was between Protestant,\nCatholic and Jewish services, and even to these a \"non-sectarian\"\nservice was often added. Wherever I went I was called upon by Jew and\nnon-Jew alike, for in the service most men took their troubles to the\nnearest chaplain irrespective of his religion. The soldier discriminated\nonly in a special case, such as the memorial prayer (kaddish) for the\nJewish boy, or confession for the Catholic. The office at once insured\nany soldier that he had a protector and a friend.\n\nBut as there were only twelve Jewish chaplains in the entire American\nExpeditionary Forces, we were instructed to devote our time so far as\npossible to the Jewish men. At the best it was impossible for one man to\nfulfill the constant religious and personal needs of the thousand Jewish\nsoldiers scattered in all the units of an entire division, as I, for\none, was supposed to do. When instead of one division a Jewish chaplain\nwas assigned several, his troubles were multiplied and his effectiveness\ndivided. Naturally, most of the work of the Jewish chaplains had to be\ndevoted to the needs of the Jewish soldiers, which would not otherwise\nbe satisfied.\n\nAny one who witnessed the labor and the self-sacrifice of chaplains of\nall creeds in the American army must preface an analysis of their work\nwith a heartfelt tribute to the men themselves. I think that these men\nwere a unique aggregation--devoted to their country and its army, yet\nloving men of all nations; loving each his own religion, yet rendering\nservice to men of all creeds; bearing each his own title, yet sharing\nequal service and equal friendship with ministers of every other faith.\nI could never have accomplished one-half of the work I did without the\nconstant friendship and hearty support of such co-workers as Father\nFrancis A. Kelley and Rev. Almon A. Jaynes, of the 27th Division\nHeadquarters, to mention only two notable examples among many others. I\nhave seen Father Kelley on the battlefield going from aid post to front\nline trench, always most eager to be with the boys when the danger was\nthe greatest, always cheerful, yet always a priest, doing the noble work\nwhich won him his medals and his popularity. I have seen the devotion\nand the regret which followed Chaplain John A. Ward of the 108th\nInfantry to the hospital in England after he was wounded in performance\nof duty, and the burst of enthusiasm which welcomed his return months\nafterward. I have seen one after another laboring and serving in the\nsame spirit, and I tender to them the tribute of a co-worker who knows\nand admires their great accomplishments.\n\nThe place of morale in the army has not yet been studied scientifically.\nAll that can be done as yet is to gather such personal and empirical\nobservations as mine, which may have bearing on the general problem.\nThese experiences were typical and these conclusions are not mine alone.\nThey are shared by great masses, in many cases by the majority of\nthinking men who had like experiences. I am here setting down the most\ntypical of the incidents which I saw or underwent and summing up the\nlittle known work of the Jewish chaplains and the Jewish Welfare Board\noverseas.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE JEWISH HOLYDAYS OF 1918 IN THE A. E. F.\n\n\nMy experiences as chaplain were as nearly typical as possible with any\nindividual. A few of the Jewish chaplains saw more actual fighting than\nI did; a few were assigned to the Army of Occupation and saw the\noccupied portion of Germany. But for nine months I served as chaplain in\nthe American Expeditionary Forces, first at the headquarters of the\nIntermediate Section, Service of Supply, at Nevers; then with the\nTwenty-Seventh Division at the front and after the armistice at the\nrear; finally at the American Embarkation Center at Le Mans. I worked in\ncooeperation with the Jewish Welfare Board; I saw Paris in war time and\nafter; I had two weeks' leave in the Riviera.\n\nMy commission as First Lieutenant Chaplain U. S. A. came to me on July\n4th, 1918 at Great Lakes Naval Station, just north of Chicago, where I\nwas then serving as Field Representative of the Jewish Welfare Board.\nTwo weeks later I reported at Hoboken for the trip overseas. There I had\nthe good fortune to obtain a furlough of ten days before sailing so that\nI was able to be back in Chicago just in time to see my newborn son and\ndaughter. I left when the babies were a week old to report back to\nHoboken again for my sailing orders and found myself at sea during the\ntense and crucial month of August 1918.\n\nThe trip was the usual one of those anxious days--thirteen days at sea,\nconstant look-out for a submarine, but finally a mild disappointment\nwhen we sailed into harbor without even a scare. We carried our life\npreservers constantly and waited daily for the sudden alarm of a boat\ndrill. Our ship, the _Balmoral Castle_, was one of a convoy of twelve,\nwith the usual quota of destroyers accompanying us. Two days from\nEngland we met a flotilla of destroyers; later two \"mystery\" ships\njoined us and in the Irish Sea we were greeted by a huge Blimp or\ndirigible balloon. With this escort we sailed down the Irish Sea, had a\nglimpse of Ireland and Scotland and finally disembarked at Liverpool.\nOur first impression was the flatness of a European metropolis when\nviewed at a distance and its entire lack of the jagged sky-line of an\nAmerican city.\n\nOur pleasurable anticipations of a view of Liverpool and perhaps a\nglimpse of London were rudely disappointed. We disembarked about noon,\nmarched through side streets, which looked like side streets in any of\nthe dirtiest of American cities, lined up at a freight station, and were\nloaded at once on waiting trains and started off for Southampton. All\nthat afternoon we absorbed eagerly the dainty beauty of the English\ncountryside which most of us knew only through literary references. We\nwere sorry when the late twilight shut off the view and we had to take\nour first lesson at sleeping while sitting up in a train, a custom which\nafterward became a habit to all officers in France.\n\nDaybreak found us at Southampton in the rest camp; evening on the _Maid\nof Orleans_, bound across the channel. We had not seen England, we had\nno place to sleep and not too much to eat, even sitting room on the\ndecks was at a premium, but we were hastening on our way to the war. At\nLe Havre we were again assigned to a British rest camp, where we\nappreciated the contrast between the excellent meals of the officers'\ncanteen and the primitive bunks in double tiers where we had to sleep.\nAfter two days of this sort of rest and a hasty visit to the city in\nbetween, I received orders to report to the G. H. Q. Chaplains' Office\nat Chaumont.\n\nMy first train journey across France impressed me at once with the\nunique character of the landscape. The English landscape is\ndistinguished by meadows, the French by trees. The most realistic\npicture of the English landscape is the fantastic description of a\nchecker-board in \"Alice in Wonderland.\" In France, however, one is\nstruck chiefly by the profusion and arrangement of trees. They are\neverywhere, alone or in clumps, and of all kinds, with often a formal\nrow of poplars or a little wood of beeches to make the sky-line more\nimpressive. In northern France the houses and barns are all of stone,\npeaked and windowless, with gardens that seem bent on contrasting as\nstrongly as possible with the grayness of the walls. It seems as though\ntiny villages are every few feet, and always with a church steeple in\nthe middle.\n\nIn Paris the first man I met was my old friend, Dr. H. G. Enelow, of\nTemple Emanu-El, New York, who was standing by the desk in the Hotel\nRegina when I registered. As the next day was Sunday, Dr. Enelow was\nable to devote some time to me, taking me for a long walk on the left\nbank of the Seine, where we enjoyed the gardens of the Luxembourg and\nsipped liqueurs at a side-walk cafe at the famous corner of Boulevarde\nSt. Michel and Germain. Paris in war-time was infinitely touching. It\nhad all the marks of the great luxury center of the world: shops,\nboulevards, hotels, and show places of every kind. But many of the most\nattractive of its tiny shops were closed; the streets at night were\nwrapped in the deepest gloom, with tiny shaded lights which were not\nintended to illuminate but only to show the direction of the street. The\ncrowds were only a little repressed in the day-time, for the extreme\ncrisis of the summer had just passed, but with dusk the streets became\nentirely deserted. Through Dr. Enelow I met also Dr. Jacob Kohn, who\nwith Dr. Enelow and Congressman Siegel constituted the commission of the\nJewish Welfare Board to outline its program for overseas work. Dr.\nEnelow introduced me also to Mr. John Goldhaar, the secretary of the\ncommission, afterward in charge of the Paris Office of the Jewish\nWelfare Board, to whom I shall refer more fully in another connection.\n\nAt Chaumont the first man I met was my old class-mate of the Hebrew\nUnion College, Chaplain Elkan C. Voorsanger, who was there temporarily\ndetached from the 77th Division to arrange for the celebration of the\nJewish holydays throughout France. He welcomed me, told me something of\nwhat my work was to be, and listened to my month-old news, which was all\nfresh to him. For a few days I lingered at the chaplains' headquarters\nat the old chateau of Neuilly sur Suisse, not far from Chaumont, where\nthirty chaplains received their gas mask training and instruction in\nfront line work, and waited for assignments. The chateau was a queer\nangular mediaeval affair, set off by lovely lawns, with the usual rows of\nstraight poplars all about. A few steps away was a little village with a\nquaint old twelfth century church, beautiful in feeling, if not in\nworkmanship. We chaplains newly arrived in France, most of us young, and\nall eager to be at work, hung on the words of our leaders fresh from the\nline. We talked much of our ideals and our preparation, as most of the\nmen were graduates of the Chaplains' Training School at Camp Taylor,\nKentucky. My assignment came very soon to organize and conduct services\nfor the Jewish holydays at Nevers, headquarters of the Intermediate\nSection, Service of Supply.\n\nThe entire American area in France had been charted out for the purpose\nof holyday services and the central cities designated, either those\nwhich had French synagogues to receive our men, or those points like\nNevers where Americans were to be found and had to be provided for. I\nquote the official order which carried authority for our arrangements.\n\n     \"Tours, Sept. 1, 1918.\n\n     Wherever it will not interfere with military operations soldiers of\n     Jewish Faith will be excused from all duty and where practicable\n     granted passes to enable them to observe Jewish Holidays as\n     follows: from noon Sept. 6th to morning of Sept. 9th and from noon\n     Sept. 15th to morning of Sept. 17th. If military necessity prevents\n     granting passes on days mentioned provision should be made to hold\n     divine services wherever possible.\"\n\nThis meant that all those had leave who were not at the time in action\nor on the move. Chaplain Voorsanger, for example, was not able to have\nany service in the 77th Division as his troops were on the march on New\nYear's Day and in action on the Day of Atonement. Most of the central\npoints designated for Jewish services were important cities with French\nsynagogues,--Paris, Toul, Belfort, Dijon, Epinal, Nantes, Rouen, Tours,\nBordeaux and Marseilles. Three of the chief American centers had none,\nso Dr. Enelow was assigned to Brest, Dr. Kohn to Chaumont, and I was\nsent to Nevers.\n\nI spent a single busy day in Tours after leaving Chaumont. I met the\nwife and father-in-law of Rabbi Leon Sommers and inspected their little\nsynagogue with its seventy-five seats. The Rabbi was on duty in the\nFrench army where he had been from the very beginning of the war. I went\nto the army headquarters and arranged for the proper notices to be sent\nout to troops in the district, then with two or three Jewish families\nwhom I met I discussed arrangements to accommodate the large number of\nJewish soldiers who would come in. I was empowered to offer them the\nfinancial assistance of the Jewish Welfare Board in providing such\naccommodations as were possible.\n\nOne surprise of a kind which I afterward came to expect, was meeting an\nold friend of mine from Great Lakes, a former sergeant in the Canadian\nArmy, mustered out of service because of the loss of several fingers and\nnow back in France again as a representative of the Knights of Columbus.\nWhen he left Great Lakes for overseas, I had parted with one of the two\nknitted sweaters I possessed, that if I did not see service at least my\nsweater would. Now I met the sweater and its owner again for a few brief\nmoments. These fleeting glimpses of friends became a delightful but\nalways tense element in our army life. Men came and went like an\never-flowing stream, now and then pausing for a greeting and always\nhurrying on again. A single day sufficed for my work in Tours and then\nto my own city for the holydays.\n\nNevers is a historic town of thirty thousand on the banks of the River\nLoire. The streets are as wide as alleys and the sidewalks narrow and\nhaphazard, so that usually one walks in the street, whether it goes up\nhill, down hill, or (as frequently) around the corner. But the parks and\nsquares are frequent and lovely, and the old buildings have a charm of\ntheir own, even if it is chiefly in the quaintness of their outlines and\nthe contrast of their gray with the sunny skies of autumn. The air was\nalways cool and the skies always bright. I stayed at the Grand Hotel de\nl'Europe, a rather small place, which one had to enter by a back door\nthrough a court. With the men at war, all the work was being done by\nwomen, while most of the guests were American officers on temporary or\npermanent duty at the post. The cathedral (every French city seems to\nhave one) is interesting chiefly to the antiquarian, as it has several\ndifferent styles combined rather inharmoniously, and the tower is not at\nall imposing.\n\nOf course, a great many Americans were stationed in or near the\ncity--railroad engineers, training camps of combat units newly arrived\nin France, construction engineers, quartermaster units, and two great\nhospital centers. Every company I visited, every ward in the hospitals,\nhad at least a few Jewish boys, and all of them were equally glad to see\nme and to attend my services. In fact, my first clear impression in\nFrance was that here lay a tremendous field for work, crying out for\nJewish chaplains and other religious workers, and that we had such a\npitiful force to answer the demand. At that time there were over fifty\nthousand Jewish soldiers in the A. E. F. at a very conservative\nestimate, with exactly six chaplains and four representatives of the\nJewish Welfare Board to minister to them. When I took up my work at\nNevers, I was simply staggered by the demands made on me and my\ninability to fulfill more than a fraction of them.\n\nAt first came the sudden rush of men into the city for the first day of\nRosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. The hotels filled up almost at once;\nthen came others who could not find accommodations, and still others who\nhad been confined to hospitals, had drawn no pay for several months, and\ncould not pay for a hotel room or even a shave. The problem was solved\nby two very helpful officers who stayed up most of the night until they\nhad provided enough room on the barrack floors and enough blankets for\nall who needed them. The accommodations were crude, but the men were\nsoldiers and glad to get them. I was doubly proud, therefore, that this\ncrowd of ours, without official control, coming for the festival and\ntherefore released from the incessant discipline they had become used\nto, never once took advantage of their privileges. We troubled the\nauthorities for their sleeping quarters and for special permission to\nbe on the street after nine at night--but that was all. Many of the boys\nmay have appreciated their leave more than the festival, but all\njustified the confidence shown in them by their conduct.\n\nImagine the difference between our services in France and those to which\nI have been accustomed in our rather tame and formal civilian\ncongregations. My congregation there was composed almost entirely of\nmen, and those men all very young. We were meeting in a strange land,\namid an ancient but alien civilization, which some of us liked and some\ndisliked, but which none of us could quite understand. We had no scroll\nof the Law, no ram's horn, not even a complete prayerbook for the\nfestivals. We had no synagogue, and the places we used were lent us by\npeople of another faith, friends and co-workers, indeed, but with little\ninterest in our festivals or our religious needs.\n\nOur services were held in the large Y. M. C. A. hut at the chief\nbarracks. The large, bare room was turned over to us for certain hours;\nthe workers closed the canteen and attended the services. And in return\nI concluded one of the evening services fifteen minutes early so that\nthe regular clientele would not miss their semi-weekly motion pictures.\nIn fact, I found the Y. M. C. A. here, as everywhere, most eager to\ncooeperate with me and to serve the Jews as well as the Christians in the\narmy. My cantor for most of the services was Corporal Cohen of New York,\nalthough several other men volunteered for certain portions of the\nprayers. The head usher was Sergeant Wolf, who looked after the hall and\nthe seating with the thoroughness characteristic of sergeants\neverywhere. Among the congregation were ten officers, two nurses, and\nthree families of French Jews, as well as a mixed group of enlisted men\nfrom every branch in the army, from every section of America and every\ngroup of Jewry. The festival had caught us in a foreign land, in the\nservice of America, and it had brought us together as nothing else could\nhave done.\n\nWe wore our hats during the service because that was the natural desire\nof the majority, who were of orthodox upbringing. Of course, a soldier\nnaturally wears his overseas cap under any circumstances and it would\nhave needed a special ruling to bring them off. The service was read out\nof the little prayer book circulated by the Jewish Welfare Board, with\nwhich about a fourth of the congregation were already provided from the\ncamps in the States. We read the abbreviated Hebrew service, then about\nhalf of the prayers in English, and had an English sermon. The only\nobjection to these innovations came from the cantor, Corporal Cohen, a\nyoung man with a traditional Jewish background, who had gathered the\nother Jews in his company every Friday evening for a brief service and\nwas generally looked up to (although not always followed) as a religious\nleader. My only way of convincing him was to inquire among some of the\nother men as to the number who did not understand Hebrew. When he saw\nthat over half of the Jewish soldiers had no understanding of the Hebrew\nservice he withdrew his insistent request for a strict traditionalism\nand I was saved the necessity of falling back on my military rank.\n\nI was much amused after the several services at the number of young men\nwho came to me, complaining about Cohen's rendering of the services and\nboasting of their own ability. I was able to give several of them the\nchance in the ensuing days and found out that it is easy to get a Hebrew\nreader, quite possible to find one who reads with feeling and\nunderstanding, but utterly impossible to pick up in the army a cantor\nwith a trained voice.\n\nOur arrangements were made under the approval of my commanding officer,\nthe senior chaplain of the post, and few features of our service were\nmore appreciated than the address of Chaplain Stull at our services on\nthe second day of the festival. I had hesitated to invite him, and was\ntherefore doubly surprised when he assured me that this was the third\nsuccessive year that he had preached at a Jewish New Year service: two\nyears before on the Mexican Border, the year before in training camp in\nthe States and now in the American Forces in France, Chaplain Stull was\na regular army chaplain of eighteen years standing, and his membership\nin the Methodist Episcopal church was less conspicuous in his makeup\nthan his long experience in army life. His sermon was one of the\noutstanding events of our holy season. His explanation of the vital\nimportance of the Service of Supply to the army at the front came with\npersonal weight for he had just come back from the fighting forces to\ntake a promotion in the rear. His moral interpretation of the\nsignificance of each man to the whole army was the sort of thing that\nthe soldier needs and likes.\n\nThese services were unusual in that they were the first holy season\nwhich most of the men had spent away from home. The war was still on\nthen; the St. Mihiel drive took place the day after Rosh Hashana; the\nnews from the front was usually good and always thrilling. We at the\nrear were deeply stirred. Some of us had been wounded and were now\nrecovering; some were in training and were soon to leave for the front;\nsome were in the S. O. S. permanently. But the shadow of war was dark\nupon us all. We were in the uncertainty, the danger, the horror of it.\nWe felt a personal thrill at the words of the prayers,--\"Who are to live\nand who to die; who by the sword and who by fire.\" We recited with\npersonal fervor the memorial prayer for our fallen comrades. Many among\nus were eager to give thanks at recovery from wounds. Therefore, the\ndesire for a religious observance of our solemn days was all the\ngreater. Men came in from a hundred miles, often walking ten miles to a\ntrain before they could ride the rest.\n\nBrothers, long separated, often met by chance, soon to separate again\nfor an unknown future. I remember two--one a veteran of two battles, now\nconvalescing at a hospital, the other newly arrived from the States and\nstill in training. They met on Rosh Hashanah, each ignorant of the\nother's whereabouts and the veteran not even knowing whether his brother\nhad arrived in France. The touching scene of their reunion had its\nhumorous side too, for the wounded soldier from the hospital naturally\nhad not a franc in his possession, and the boy from the States had\nenough money for a real holiday and had reserved a hotel room with a\nluxurious French bed. He was thus able to act as host for two happy days\nand nights. But on Yom Kippur when the wounded soldier came again his\nbrother was not there. His unit had been ordered to the front and I do\nnot know whether they ever met again.\n\nWar had us all in its iron grip. I, for one, expected soon to have my\nrequest granted that I be assigned to a combat division. Not that I\noverlooked the need for Jewish work in the S. O. S., but the most\npressing need at that time was at the front, and I was looking forward\nto taking up the more exacting duties there.\n\nThe three Jewish families of the city added a pathetic touch, for they\nwere glad indeed to attend a Jewish service and for the sake of the\nsoldiers were willing to sit through our English additions. Their\nsituation seemed similar to that of most recent immigrants of the United\nStates; the parents spoke both Yiddish and French, the young people like\nours in America, spoke chiefly the language of the country. It was both\nludicrous and touching to see American soldiers competing to exchange\nthe few French words they knew with the two or three Jewish daughters.\nIt was often their first chance for a word with a girl of their own\nclass, certainly with a Jewish girl, since they had left America. And\nthe fact that the girl with her familiar appearance could not\ncommunicate with them on a conversational basis, did not seem to impede\ntheir relations in the least. The isolated condition of these French\nJews in a city of 30,000 can only be compared to that of American Jews\nin a country village.\n\nWhile at Nevers I could not overlook the opportunity to visit the two\ngreat hospital centers at Mars and at Mesves sur Loire. I visited from\nward to ward in both of them, paying special attention to the Jewish\nboys and finding always plenty of occasion for favors of a hundred\ndifferent kinds. At that time we were short of chaplains of all\ndenominations in the army, so that even the hospitals had not enough to\nminister fully to their thousands of sick and wounded, while the\nconvalescent camps with their hundreds of problems were almost uncared\nfor in this respect.\n\nAt Mars I held a service on Friday night which was fairly typical of\nconditions in France. The service was announced as a Jewish religious\nservice, but on my arrival I found the Red Cross room crowded with men\nof every type, including four negroes in the front row. Evidently it was\nthe only place the men had outside the wards, so they came there every\nnight for the show, movie, or service which might be provided. They were\nnot merely respectful to the service and the minority of Jews who took\npart in it. They were actively responsive to the message I brought them\nof conditions in America and the backing the people at home were giving\nthem in their great work abroad. These wounded men from the lines, these\nmedical corpsmen who might never see the front, were alike eager to feel\nthe part they personally were playing in the great, chaotic outlines of\nthe world-wide struggle. And they responded to a Jewish service with an\ninterest which I soon found was typical of the soldier, in his restless\nattention, his open-mindedness, his intolerance of cant but love of\ngenuine religion.\n\nThe meetings and partings of war-time came home to me several times at\nNevers. I was called to see a young man in the hospital, suffering from\nspinal meningitis. I found him a highly intelligent boy from Chicago who\nknew a number of my old friends there. I was able to do a few minor\nfavors for him such as obtaining his belongings and notifying his unit\nthat he was not absent without leave, but simply locked up in the\ncontagious ward. But on his recovery the news went to his family in\nChicago to get in touch with my wife and a friendship was established on\na genuine basis of interests in common. At another time I was approached\nat the Y. M. C. A. by one of their women workers who had heard my name\nannounced. She turned out to be a Mrs. Campbell of my old home town,\nSioux City, Iowa, and an acquaintance of my mother through several\ncharity boards of which they both were members. She was acting as\ninstructor in French and advisor to the American soldiers in Nevers,\nwhile her husband, Prof. Campbell of Morningside College, was on the\nFrench front with the French auxiliary of the Y. M. C. A.\n\nAnother interesting incident was my meeting with Mr. Julius Rosenwald of\nChicago, then touring France as a member of the National Council of\nDefense. The Y. M. C. A. secretary asked me to introduce him to a\nsoldier audience in one of their huts. The first day I came, however,\nMr. Rosenwald was delayed and the boys had to put up with a new film of\nDouglas Fairbanks in his stead, like good soldiers accepting the\nsubstitution gladly enough. On the second day Mr. Rosenwald himself was\nthere and I had the pleasure of introducing him to an audience of about\nfive hundred soldiers, as varied a group as ever wore the American\nuniform. His simple personal appeal was a direct attempt to build up\nthe morale of the troops through a hearty report of the interest and\nenthusiasm of the people at home. He called for a show of hands of the\nhome states of the different men, then responded by reading letters and\ntelegrams from governors and other local officials. Mr. Rosenwald was\none of the very few official travelers in France whose trip was not\nmerely informative to himself but also valuable to the army. We in the\narmy grew to dislike \"joy riders\" so heartily that it is a positive\npleasure to mention such a conspicuous exception.\n\nAnother duty typical of the variety of tasks which welcomed me as a\nchaplain, was to conduct the defense of a Jewish boy at a general court\nmartial. He asked to see me during the holydays, told me his story, and\nI stayed over in Nevers a few days to act as his counsel. Since that\ntime I have frequently been called on for advice in similar cases, for\nan army chaplain has almost as many legal and medical duties as strictly\nreligious ones. In this particular case circumstantial evidence seemed\nto show that the young man had stolen and sold some musical instruments\nfrom an army warehouse where he worked. He was only a boy, a volunteer\nwho had falsified his age in order to enlist. According to his own story\nhe was partially involved in the case, acting ignorantly as agent for\nthe real criminal.\n\nThe trial was quite fair, bringing out the circumstantial evidence\nagainst him, and his sentence was as low as could possibly be expected.\nSo, with memories of friendships made, of work accomplished, of a new\nworld opening ahead, I left Nevers on September 20th after only\neighteen days of service. I had to report at Chaumont again to receive\nmy orders to join the 27th Division.\n\nFor two months after that no Jewish chaplain was stationed in the\nIntermediate Section, which covered the entire central part of France\nand contained many thousands of American troops, including everywhere a\ncertain proportion of Jews. Then Chaplain Rabinowitz reported at Nevers\ntemporarily and served for his entire time in France in various points\nin the Intermediate Section, at Nevers, Blois and at St. Aignan.\n\nI had been thrust into the midst of this tremendous, crying need for\nservice of every kind, religious, personal and military. I went to my\ndivision to find the same or greater need, as the situation was always\nmore tense at the actual front. For three weeks I had ministered as much\nas I could to the Jewish men scattered about Nevers and all through the\ncentral portion of France. Now I left them for good. Their usual\ngreeting on meeting me had been, \"You are the first Jewish chaplain or\nworker we have met on this side.\" And unfortunately, the same greeting\nwas addressed to me every time I came to a new unit or city until the\nvery day I left France. The need among these two million soldiers was so\ntremendous that a hundred times our resources would not have been\nsufficient. As it was, we made no pretense at covering the field, but\nsimply did day labor wherever we were stationed, serving the soldiers,\nJews and Christians alike, and giving our special attention to the\nreligious services and other needs of the Jewish men.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nAT THE FRONT WITH THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION\n\n\nI reached my division on the first of October, 1918, after a tedious ten\ndays on the way. I traveled most of the way with Lieutenant Colonel\nTrue, whom I met on the train coming out of Chaumont. I found that the\nhigher ranking officers invariably approached the chaplains not as\nofficers of inferior rank but as leaders of a different kind, much as a\nprominent business man treats his minister in civil life. Colonel True\nwas a regular army man of long standing who was being transferred from\nanother division to the Twenty-Seventh. When we arrived at the Hotel\nRichmond, the Y. M. C. A. hotel for officers in Paris, we found only one\nroom available with a double bed, and so for the first time in my life I\nhad the honor of sleeping with a Lieutenant Colonel. The honor was a\ndoubtful one as he had at the time a slight attack of \"flu\" brought on\nfrom exposure and a touch of gas in the recent St. Mihiel drive. Colonel\nTrue had received his promotion from a majority and his transfer before\nthe drive, but had not reported until he had gone through the whole\nfight at the head of his battalion. I mention this not as a striking,\nbut strictly as a typical proceeding on the part of the average American\nofficer.\n\nFor a few days we were held at the Replacement Camp at Eu in\nNormandy--an idyllic spot within sight of the English Channel,\nsurrounded by gentle hills. While there I made several trips to Treport,\na favorite summer resort on the Channel before the war. It is a quaint\nlittle fishing village with a typical modern summer resort superimposed.\nThe old stone Norman cottages with their high roofs always had a touch\nof decoration somewhere, in mosaic, paint or stained glass, different\nfrom the plainer architecture of Central France. The modern part\nconsists of several beautiful hotels and a number of cheap restaurants\nand curio shops. Of course, the hotels were all used by the British Army\nas hospitals at this time. I visited Base Hospital 16, a Philadelphia\nUnit, which was loaned to the British. I had a delightful talk with our\nRed Cross Chaplain and made a tour of many of the wards. The patients\nwere almost all British with a few Americans from the August campaign in\nFlanders. Among the rest I met about a dozen Jewish boys, English and\nAustralian, who were naturally delighted by the rare visit of a Jewish\nChaplain. The eight Jewish Chaplains in the British Expeditionary Forces\nwere attached to the various Army Headquarters, and so had to cover\nimpossible areas in their work. The nearest one to Treport was Rabbi\nGeffen at Boulogne with whom I afterward came into communication, and\nfrom whom I obtained a large number of the army prayer books arranged by\nthe Chief Rabbi of England for use in the British Forces.\n\nHospital visiting is dreary work, especially when there is action going\non from which one is separated. The work is exhausting physically,\nwalking up and down the long wards and stopping by bedsides. It is\nespecially a drain on the nerves and sympathies, to see so many sick and\nmutilated boys--boys in age most of them, certainly boys in spirit--and\ngiving oneself as the need arises. And in a hospital so many men have\nrequests. They are helpless and it is always impossible to have enough\nvisitors and enough chaplains for them. I was glad to be useful at\nTreport but gladder still when the word came through to release all\ntroops in the Second Corps Replacement Depot.\n\nWe were loaded on a train, the soldiers in box-cars of the familiar type\n(\"40 men or 8 horses\") with the little group of officers crowded\ntogether in a single first-class coach. Broken windows, flat wheels and\nno lights showing--we were beginning to feel that we were in the war\nzone. From Eu to Peronne took from 4:30 A. M. to 9:30 P. M. with three\nchanges of trains and ten additional stops. We got only a short view of\nthe railroad station at Amiens, at that time almost completely\ndestroyed. Our division was then in the British area on the Somme\nsector, and at the time of our arrival they had just come out of the\ngreat victory at the Hindenburg Line.\n\nOur first ruined city was Peronne, which will never leave my memory. The\nfeeling of a ruined town is absolutely indescribable, for how can one\nimagine a town with neither houses nor people, where the very streets\nhave often been destroyed? This situation contradicts our very\ndefinition of a town, for a town is made of streets, houses and people;\nno imagination can quite grasp the reality of war and ruin without its\nactual experience. And Peronne was much more striking than most cities\nin the war zone; it had been fought through six different times, and\nits originally stately public buildings showed only enough to impress us\nwith the ruin that had been wrought. Only one wall of one end of the\nchurch was standing, with two fine Gothic arches, only one side of the\nbuilding on the square and so on through the whole town. We became\ninured to the sight of ruined villages later on, but the first shock of\nseeing Peronne will be indelible.\n\nThe headquarters of the division were then located at the Bois de Buire,\nabout ten miles out, though for almost a half day we could find nobody\nto give us exact directions. At last Lieutenant Colonel H. S.\nSternberger, the division quartermaster, put in an appearance and\noffered to take me and Lieutenant Colonel True up to headquarters in his\ncar. The rest of our party had all wandered off by then in the direction\nof their various units. Colonel Sternberger was the highest ranking\nofficer at the time among the thousand Jews in the Twenty-Seventh\nDivision. Lieutenant Colonel Morris Liebman of the 106th Infantry, also\na Jew, had been killed in action in Flanders six weeks before, a loss\nwhich was very deeply felt in his regiment. Colonel Sternberger was one\nof the popular staff officers of the division owing to his indefatigable\nlabors for the welfare of the boys. His great efforts at the expense of\nmuch personal risk and of serious damage to his health were directed to\nget the food up to the front on time. While I was with the division,\nColonel Sternberger proved both a staunch personal friend and an active\nally in my work.\n\nIt took more than a day to become acquainted with the camouflaged\noffices in the woods. Small huts, with semicircular iron roofs covered\nwith branches, were scattered about among the trees. Some of them had\nsigns, Division Adjutant, Commanding General, and the rest; others were\nbillets. I invariably lost my way when I went to lunch and wandered for\nsome minutes before finding \"home.\" \"Home\" was a hut exactly like the\nrest, where the French mission and the gas officer had their offices\nduring the day and where six of us slept at night. I fell heir to the\ncot of one of the interpreters then home on leave, Georges Levy, who\nafterward became one of my best friends. My baggage had disappeared on\nthe trip, so that I had only my hand bag with the little it could hold.\nMy first need, naturally, was for blankets to cover the cot. I collected\nthese from various places, official and otherwise, until the end of the\nmonth found me plentifully provided. I must admit that the first cool\nnights in the woods forced me to sleep in my clothes. Naturally, my\nfirst task was to wire for my baggage, but it had completely vanished\nand did not return for four long months. Everybody lost his possessions\nat some time during the war; I was unique only in losing them at the\noutset and not seeing them until the whole need for them was over.\n\nThe boys had just come out of the line, worn out, with terrible losses,\nbut after a great victory such as occurs only a few times in any war.\nThey had broken the Hindenburg Line, that triple row of trenches and\nbarbed wire, with its concrete pill-boxes, its enfilading fire from\nmachine guns, its intricate and tremendous system of defenses. I crossed\nthe line many times during the month that followed and never failed to\nmarvel that human beings could ever have forced it. The famous tunnel\nof the St. Quentin Canal was in our sector, too, as well as part of the\ncanal itself. The villages about us were destroyed so completely that no\nsingle roof or complete wall was standing for a shelter and the men had\nto live in the cellars.\n\nOne wall always bore the name of the former village in large letters,\nwhich became still larger and more striking in the territory near the\nHindenburg Line, so long occupied by the Germans. I used to repay the\ngenerous Tommies for their rides on the constant stream of trucks (we\ncalled them \"lorries,\" like the English) by translating the numerous\nGerman signs at railroad crossings and the like, about which they always\nhad much curiosity.\n\nOne could travel anywhere on main roads by waiting until a truck came\nalong and then hailing it. If the seat was occupied there was usually\nsome room in the rear, and the British drivers were always glad to take\none on and equally glad to air their views on the war. When one came to\na cross road, he jumped off, hailed the M. P. (Military Police) for\ndirections and took the next truck which was going in the proper\ndirection. In that way I have often traveled on a dozen trucks in a day,\nwith stop-overs and occasional walks of a few miles to fill in the gaps.\nBetween a map, a compass and the M. P.'s, we always managed to circulate\nand eventually find our way home again.\n\nWe saw the heavy guns lumbering on their way to the front, the\naeroplanes humming overhead like a swarm of dragon-flies. Day and night\nwe could hear the rumble of guns like distant thunder, while at night\nthe flashes showed low on the horizon like heat lightning. Our salvage\ndepot was at Tincourt at the foot of the hill, and when I went over\nthere Corporal Klein and Sergeant Friedlander were quick to repair gaps\nin my equipment. One night I witnessed the division musical comedy (the\n\"Broadway Boys\") in an old barn at Templeux le Fosse, where we walked in\nthe dark, found the place up an alley and witnessed a really excellent\nperformance with costumes, scenery and real orchestra. In the middle of\nan act, an announcement would be made that all men of the third\nbattalion, 108th Infantry, should report back at once, and a group of\nfellows would rise and file out for the five-mile hike back in the\ndarkness: they were to move up to the front before morning.\n\nMy chief effort during those few hurried days was to get into touch with\nthe various units so that I could be of some definite service to them\nwhen they went into action. Unfortunately, almost every time I arranged\nfor a service and appeared to hold it the \"outfit\" would already be on\nthe move. The best service I held was at the village of Buire, where\nabout forty boys gathered together under the trees among the ruined\nhouses. They were a deeply devotional group, told me about their holyday\nservices conducted by a British army chaplain at Doulens, about their\nfallen comrades for whom they wanted to repeat the memorial prayers, and\nabout their own narrow escapes for which they were eager to offer\nthanks. They had the deep spiritual consciousness which comes to most\nmen in moments of great peril.\n\nI managed to reach most of the infantry regiments, however, by hiking\ndown from the woods and sometimes catching a ride. Everywhere was\naction. It was the breathing space between our two great battles of the\nwar. Every unit was hoping and expecting a long rest. But that hope\ncould not be fulfilled. The intensity of the drive against the entire\nGerman line was beginning to tell and every possible unit was needed in\nthe line to push ahead. So the rest of the Twenty-Seventh Division was\nbrief indeed. Every regiment was starting for the front with no\nreplacements after the terrific slaughter of two weeks before, with very\nlittle new equipment and practically no rest. And the front was now\nfurther away than it had been. The success of the allied forces meant\nlonger marches for our tired troops.\n\nAll the villages were devastated in this area. It was the section\nbetween Peronne and the old Hindenburg Line. Not until we came to the\nGerman side of the Hindenburg Line did we find the villages in any sort\nof repair. The men lived in cellars without roofs, in rooms without\nwalls or sometimes in barracks which were constructed by either of the\nopposing armies during the long years of the struggle. Of course, many\nshelters existed such as our \"elephant huts\" in the woods or the perfect\nhoneycomb of dugouts in the sides of the quarry at Templeux le Gerard.\n\nOne day I \"lorried\" up to the division cemeteries near the old\nbattlefield, which were being laid out by a group of chaplains with a\nlarge detail of enlisted men. I saw the occasional Jewish graves marked\nwith the Star of David and later was able to complete the list and have\nall Jewish graves in our division similarly marked. I got to know the\ncountry about Bellicourt and Bony, where our heaviest fighting had\ntaken place. I heard the story of the eight British tanks, lying\nhelpless at the top of the long ridge near Bony, where they had run upon\na mine field. I got to know the \"Ausies,\" always the best friends and\ngreat admiration of our soldiers, with their dashing courage and\nreckless heroism, and the \"Tommies,\" those steady, matter-of-fact\nworkmen at the business of war, whom our boys could never quite\nunderstand.\n\nFinally our headquarters moved forward, too. I jumped out of a colonel's\ncar one dark night and hunted for an hour and a half among the hills\nbefore I found the chalk quarry where they now were hidden from prying\nair scouts. At last, finding the quarry, I met a boy I knew, who took me\nto the dugout where the senior chaplain was sleeping. I crawled into a\nvacant bunk, made myself at home and left the next morning for good. The\nquarry did not appeal to me when wet; one was too likely to slide from\nthe top to the bottom and stay there; and I had no desire to test its\nadvantages when dry. The next time I came back to headquarters they were\nin the village of Joncourt, beyond the Hindenburg Line, in territory\nwhich we had released from the Germans. The chief attraction of Joncourt\nwas an occasional roof--of course, there were no windows. The cemetery\nhad been used as a \"strong point\" by the retreating Germans, who had\nscattered the bodies about and used the little vaults as pill-boxes in\nwhich to mount machine guns. And our message center was located in a\nGerman dugout fully fifty feet underground; evidently plenty of\nprecautions had been taken against allied air raids. In fact, from this\npoint on every house in every village had a conspicuous sign, telling\nof the _Fliegerschutz_ for a certain number of men in its cellar. In\naddition, the placard told the number of officers, men and horses which\ncould be accommodated with billets on the premises. Evidently, the\nGermans in laying out their permanently occupied territory, went about\nit in their usual business-like fashion.\n\nBut between my glimpses of these various headquarters, I was at the\nfront with the troops going into the trenches and had had a glimpse of\nwar. My first experience under fire was in some woods near Maretz, where\nI spent part of the night with one battalion, as they paused before\ngoing into the trenches. I finished the night on the floor of a house in\nthe village, having grown accustomed enough to the sound of the shells\nto sleep in spite of it. Like most people I had wondered how one feels\nunder fire, and experienced a queer sensation when I first heard the\nlong whine of a distant shell culminating in a sudden explosion. Now I\nrealized that I was under fire, too. But I speedily found that one feels\nmore curiosity than fear under long-distance fire; real fear comes\nchiefly when the shells begin to land really near by. I was to\nexperience that, too, a little later. In fact, I found out soon that\nevery soldier is frightened; a good soldier is simply one who does his\nduty in spite of fear.\n\nThen a report came in that Chaplain John Ward, of the 108th Infantry,\nhad been seriously wounded and I was sent to take his place with the\nunit. In a push the chaplain works with the wounded; after it, with the\ndead. Of many sad duties at the front, his is perhaps the saddest of\nall. My first station was with the third battalion headquarters and aid\npost in a big white house set back in a little park in the tiny village\nof Escaufourt, a mile or so behind the lines. Captain Merrill was in\ncommand of the battalion and one could see how the work and\nresponsibility wore on him day by day, reducing the round, cheerful\nsoldier for the time almost to a whispering, tottering old man. But his\nspirit held him to the task; he slept for only a few minutes at a time,\nand then was back at work again. A conscientious man can have no more\nexacting duty than this, to care for the lives of a thousand men.\n\nWe were under constant fire there, though not under observation, but the\nlittle ambulances ran up to the gate of the chateau for the wounded, who\nhad to walk or be carried in and out from the house to the gate. We ate\nupstairs in the stately dining room at times, though we usually ate and\nalways slept in the crowded cellar where the major and his staff were\nhoused. There eight or nine of us would sit on our brick seats and sleep\nwith our backs against the wall, being awakened from time to time by a\nmessenger coming in or by the ringing of the field telephone in the\ncorner. The telephone operator was always testing one or another\nconnection, day and night, for the emergency when it would be needed.\n\nOne night companies H and I of the 108th Infantry were almost completely\nwiped out by gas. They were in low lying trenches by the side of the\ncanal under a constant fire of gas shells, while the damp weather kept\nthe dangerous fumes near the ground. They had no orders to evacuate to a\nsafer post and no human being can live forever in a gas mask, so one\nafter another the men yielded to temptation, took off their masks for\nmomentary relief, and inhaled the gas-laden air. All evening and night\nthey kept coming in by twos and threes to our aid post, the stronger\nones walking, the rest on stretchers. Their clothing reeked of the\nsickeningly sweet odor. The room was soon full of it, so that we had to\nblow out the candles and open the door for a few minutes to avoid being\ngassed ourselves. There were three ambulances running that night to the\nMain Dressing Station, and I made it my task to meet each car, notify\nthe doctor and bring the gassed and wounded men out to the ambulance.\nMost of them were blinded for the time being by the effect of the gas.\nNo light was possible, as that would have drawn fire at once. Every ten\nminutes through the night our village was shelled, and in walking the\nforty or fifty yards through the park to the gate, I had to make two\ndetours with my blinded men to avoid fresh shell-holes made that very\nafternoon. I admit feeling an occasional touch of panic as I led the big\nhelpless fellows around those fresh shell holes and helped them into the\nambulances. The final touch came when a youngster of perhaps seventeen\nentered the aid post alone, walking painfully. \"What outfit are you\nfrom, sonny?\" was my natural greeting. \"I am the last man left in\nCompany H,\" was the proud reply.\n\nThis was the sort of fatal blunder which seemed to occur once in every\ncommand before the lesson was learned that gas-filled trenches need no\ndefending, and that troops, safely withdrawn a hundred yards or more,\ncan be moved forward again quickly enough the moment the gas lifts. The\nEnglish had had the same lesson more than once until they learned it\nthoroughly; so had the Germans; now our armies, with their examples\nbefore us, had to learn it again through the suffering of our own\nsoldiers. Our division was not the only one in which the same or a\nsimilar blunder cost the men so dearly, for I have read the same\nincident of more than one unit on other parts of the American line, and\nhave had them verified by officers who were present at those other\ncatastrophes. In the art of war the instruction of the generals costs\nthe lives of the soldiers.\n\nWe had the peculiar experience of seeing the village which we had\nentered in good condition crumbling about us under the enemy fire. Even\nthe windows were intact when we reached it; the Germans were just out,\nand our artillery had been outstripped completely in the forward rush.\nUnder the constant pounding of back area fire, designed to prevent\nammunition and supplies coming up to the line unmolested, our little\nvillage lost windows, roofs and walls, disintegrating steadily into a\nheap of ruins.\n\nOne evening we were assigned the task of evacuating some old French\npeasants who had clung to their little homes through all the\nworld-shaking catastrophe. At last they had to leave, as the danger to\nthem was too direct and, in addition, they constituted a hidden menace\nto our troops in case even one of them had been left behind as a spy. I\nwent with a party of Australians and a few of our men to the houses in\nthe outskirts of the town, where the greatest danger existed. I remember\nthe utterly disconsolate attitude of two old men and a little old woman\nin one of them, when they were told they had to leave. They seemed numb\nin the midst of all the rush and roar of warfare. Their little\npossessions were there, they were of the peasant type and had probably\nnever been out of the district in their lives. The advance of the enemy\nin 1914 had been accompanied by no fighting near their homes, and now\nthe allied victory, the one hope of their country, was the one thing\nthat bore destruction to their little village and tore them away from\nthe spot where they were rooted.\n\nOne evening I joined a ration party going forward and visited the lines\nand advanced headquarters at St. Souplet, hearing the peculiar whistle\nof a sniper's bullet pass me as I made my way back after dusk. One of\nthe boys carrying a heavy bag of hardtack had a sore shoulder, not quite\nwell from a previous wound. So I shouldered his bag for a decidedly\nweary mile of skulking along a sunken road and hurrying across the\noccasional open spaces. When we came to his unit I was glad to turn the\nbag over to him; I felt no pleasure in such lumpy burden, and would far\nrather have worn out my shoulder with something more appreciated by the\nboys than hardtack,--the one thing which nobody enjoyed but which was\neaten only because they were desperately hungry. On the night of October\n16th we all moved over, preparatory to the push across the Selle River.\nWe installed ourselves in the large building at the cross roads, where\nthe aid post was stationed. I joined a group of sleepers on the cellar\nfloor, picking my way in the darkness to find a vacant spot. My trench\ncoat on the plank floor made a really luxurious bed.\n\nThe next morning, October 17th, I was awakened at 5:20 by the barrage;\nthe boys were going over; the battle of the Selle River had began. By\nsix o'clock the wounded began to flow in, at first by twos and threes,\nthen in a steady stream. They came walking wearily along or were carried\non the shoulders of German prisoners or occasionally by our own men. As\nwe were at the crossroads, we got most of the wounded, English, German\nand American, as well as a great deal of the shelling with which back\nareas are always deluged during an attack. In this case, our post was\njust behind the lines at first, but it became a back area within a very\nfew days owing to the dash and brilliancy of our tired troops when the\norders came to go over the top. They stormed the heights across the\nstream after wading it in the first rush, and then went on across the\nhills and fields.\n\nOur attack was a part of the campaign of the British Third Army and a\nsmall element in the great \"push\" going on at that time over the entire\nfront. Our task with that of the Thirtieth Division on our right was to\ncross the Selle River and advance toward the Sambre Canal. On our left\nwere British troops, while we were supported by Australian artillery and\nthe British Air Service. In our first great battle, that of the\nHindenburg Line, the \"Ausies\" had acted as the second wave, coming up\njust in time to save some of the hard pressed units of our Division and\nto complete the success of our assault. So we knew them well enough and\nwere glad indeed to have their excellent artillery to put over the\nbarrage for our second attack.\n\nThe Australians and, in fact, all the British Colonial troops, had much\nmore in common with the American soldiers than had the British troops\nthemselves. They were like our men, young, hardy, dashing. They were\nall volunteers. They had a type of discipline of their own, which\nincluded saluting their own officers when they wanted to and never\nsaluting British officers under any circumstances. I took a natural\npride in hearing of their commanding officer, Lieutenant General Sir\nJohn Monash, who held the highest rank of any Jew in the war. It was no\nlittle honor to be the commander of those magnificent troops from\nAustralia.\n\nMeanwhile we were busy at the first aid post. I found myself the only\nperson at hand who could speak any German, so I took charge of the door,\nwith a group of prisoners to carry the wounded in and out and load them\nin the ambulances. As soon as my dozen or so prisoners were tired out I\nwould send them on to the \"cage\" and pick up new men from the constant\nstream flowing in from the front. Our opponents here were chiefly\nWurtembergers, young boys of about twenty, although one regiment of\nPrussian marines was among them. Among the first prisoners were two\nGerman physicians who offered to assist ours in the work. They worked\nall day, one in our aid post, the other in that of the 107th Infantry,\nside by side with our surgeons and doing excellent work for Americans\nand Germans alike. They picked their own assistants from among their\ncaptured medical corpsmen, and were strictly professional in their\nattitude throughout. One of them was Dr. Beckhard, a Jew from Stuttgart,\nwith whom I had a few snatches of conversation and whom I should\ncertainly like to meet again under more congenial circumstances. I was\namused in the midst of it all when the doctor noticed his brother, an\nartilleryman, coming in as one of the endless file of stretcher\nbearers, carrying wounded in gray or olive drab. The doctor asked me\nwhether he might take his brother as one of his assistants for the day.\n\"Is he any good?\" I asked. \"Oh, yes,\" was the answer, \"as good as any\nmedical orderly.\" So I gave permission and the two, together with a real\nmedical orderly and another young prisoner as interpreter, ran one room\nof the first aid post in their own way. I kept an American soldier on\nguard there chiefly to be prepared for any eventualities; as a matter of\nfact the German surgeons treated American wounded and American surgeons\ntreated German wounded with the same impartial spirit. The two\nphysicians joined the other prisoners at the end of the day bearing\nletters of appreciation written by Captain Miller, the surgeon in charge\nof our post.\n\nAbout a year later when communication with Germany was opened again, I\nfound that this chance meeting at the front proved an odd means of\ncommunication with my German cousins. When Dr. Beckhard returned to\nStuttgart he lectured on his experiences at the front, mentioning among\nother things that he had met an American Rabbi by the name of Levinger.\nSome distant relatives of mine living in the city heard the talk and\nwrote to a nearer branch of the family living in another part of\nWurtemberg, so that shortly after the actual experience they knew of my\nbeing in the army and serving at the front.\n\nOnly the small Ford ambulances could come as near the front as our post,\nwhile the larger ones came only to the Advanced Dressing Station at\nBusigny. These smaller ambulances were unable to accommodate the\nconstant stream of gassed and wounded men coming from the lines. Those\nwho had minor wounds, especially in the arms, had to be directed along\nthe proper road according to that ironical term, \"walking wounded.\"\nCases which in civil life would be carried to an ambulance, given full\ntreatment, and then driven gently to the nearest hospital, were here\ngiven emergency dressings and told, \"The Advanced Dressing Station is\ntwo miles down that road, boys. Walk slow and don't miss the sign\ntelling where to turn to the left.\" Other more serious cases for whom\nthere was no room in ambulances, at the moment were carried on\nstretchers by prisoners. I would assemble three or four such cases, take\na revolver left by some wounded officer or non-com, and give it to a\n\"walking wounded\" with instructions to \"see that they get safely to the\nnext point.\" Naturally, these boys with minor wounds of their own were\nsafe guardians to see that the German prisoners did their duty. I can\nstill see their grins as they assured me: \"Those fellows are sure going\nto stick on the job, sir. I'll say they will!\" The attitude of the\nslightly wounded men was often full of grim humor. I remember one\nAustralian carried in on a stretcher who called me to his side with\ntheir customary \"Here, Yank,\" and when I responded handed me very\ngravely a Mills bomb which he had used to overawe his captive bearers,\napparently threatening to blow them up with himself should they prove\ninsubordinate.\n\nA constant worry of mine were the weapons which the wounded men dropped\nin front or within the aid post. Knowing that all army supplies would\nbe reissued to them on release from the hospital, the soldiers did not\ncare to carry heavy rifles or even revolvers and bombs back with them.\nThe result was a pile of weapons at just the point where my prisoner\nstretcher-bearers could have easy access to them. I kept an M. P. busy\nmuch of the time removing these to a place of comparative safety.\n\nBehind the aid post we found a shed which served as temporary morgue for\nthe men who died before we could give them emergency treatment and rush\nthem off in the ambulances. The extreme tension of the actual fight and\nthe tremendous pressure of administering to the living calloused the\nheart for the moment to these horrible necessities, which come back to\nmemory in later days with the full measure of ghastly detail.\n\nThe chaplain is the handy man at the front, one of the few who is not\nlimited by special duties or confined to a particular spot. He works\nforward or backward as the need exists. He ladles out hot chocolate with\nthe Red Cross, carries a stretcher with the Medical Corps, ties up a\nbandage when that is needed, and prays for Jew and Christian alike. I\nministered to a number of Jewish and Christian soldiers who were dying,\nleading the Jews in the traditional confession of faith, and reading a\npsalm for the Protestants. One of the surgeons came to me and said,\n\"Captain Connor here is dying, and Chaplain Hoffman our priest is at\nBattalion Headquarters acting as interpreter to examine some prisoners.\nWhat can we do?\" So I borrowed the surgeon's rosary and held the cross\nto the lips of the dying Catholic. This incident, so impossible in\ncivil life, is really expected among soldiers,--it has been repeated so\nmany times and in so many different ways.\n\nWe were constantly under heavy shell fire, as our place at the cross\nroads was not only convenient of access, but was also the only route for\nbringing supplies and ammunition to our part of the front. Once as I was\nin the middle of the road with several prisoners loading stretchers on\nan ambulance, a shell burst in a pool about twenty feet away, covering\nus with a shower of mud. My prisoners, who had a wholesome respect for\ntheir own artillery, could hardly be prevented from dropping the\nstretcher. However, we were too near the explosion to be hurt, as the\nfragments flew over our heads, killing one boy and wounding four others\nacross the street. One of the wounded was an American runner from the\nfront, who was enjoying a hasty bite at the army field kitchen around\nthe corner. He came over in a hurry to have his cheek tied up and then\nwent calmly back to the field kitchen to finish his interrupted lunch.\nThe man who was killed was standing about seventy-five feet from the\nspot of the explosion beside the motor-cycle which he drove, waiting for\nhis commanding officer to come and use the side-car. He pitched forward\nas though falling to avoid the explosion, just as we would have done if\nwe had not been holding a stretcher. When he did not rise, Father Kelley\nand I went over to him and found that a fatal bit of metal had struck\nhim in the head just below his steel helmet.\n\nAnd so the work went on. The next day we heard of some wounded who had\nnot yet been brought in from Bandival Farm. Chaplain Burgh of the 107th\nInfantry and I gathered together a few volunteers of our ambulance men\nand several prisoners to go out and carry them in. It was about a mile\nand a half out across the battlefield under intermittent shell fire. I\nplaced my captured Luger revolver, which one of the boys had brought me\nthe day before, in a conspicuous position with the handle projecting\nfrom my front pocket. I had had the thing unloaded as soon as I got it\nbecause I preferred not to run any unnecessary risks. Being a\nnon-combatant both by orders and inclination, I was afraid it might go\noff. But my prisoners did not know that and so I had no difficulty in\nsilencing their muttered protests against such a hard and dangerous\nhike. Working prisoners under fire like this was strictly against\ninternational law, but that sort of a provision we violated frankly and\ncheerfully. On the way back with our wounded across the muddy and\nshell-pitted fields, we passed German machine gun emplacements with the\ndead gunners still beside the guns, Americans lying with their faces\ntoward the enemy, and constant heaps of supplies of all kinds strewn\nabout. One of our stretchers was put down for a moment's rest near such\na scattered group of German knapsacks. One of the prisoners asked if he\nmight help himself, and when I nodded all four made a wild dash for the\nsupplies and each man came back carrying an army overcoat and a bag of\nemergency rations, the little sweetish crackers which they carried\ninstead of our hard tack.\n\nOn the third day of the attack I joined two men of the Intelligence\nDepartment in walking out to the front line, then over five miles from\nthe village. It was a hard hike through the mud and about the shell\nholes. Finally we found our friends dug in (for the fourth time that\nday) on a little ridge. Each time their temporary trenches had been\ncompleted orders had come either for a short retreat or a further\nadvance, and now by the middle of the afternoon the boys were digging\nanother at the place where they were to stay till the next morning.\nAcross the ravine in a little wood the Germans were hanging on for the\ntime being until their artillery could be saved. I visited the 108th\nInfantry in reserve and emptied my musette bag of the sacks of Bull\nDurham which I had brought along from the Red Cross. Then the boys\nwanted matches, which I had forgotten, and their gratitude was lost in\ntheir disgust.\n\nI found Captain Merrill with his staff inspecting two captured German\n77's, on which they had just placed the name of their unit. By that\ntime, after three consecutive battles without replacements, our units\nwere so depleted that a regiment had only 250 rifles in the line instead\nof the original 3,000. Captain Merrill's battalion consisted on that day\nof 87 riflemen. Just as we finished our inspection of the guns the enemy\nartillery started \"strafing\" again, so we jumped into a shell-hole which\nhad been hollowed out into convenient form and finished our conversation\nthere. I then visited some of the 107th Infantry in the front line rifle\npits, one hundred yards or so ahead, and turned back again toward the\nvillage.\n\nI was just losing my way among the hills with approaching twilight, when\nI met an Australian artillery train on their way back for supplies, and\nclimbed on a limber to ride into town. It was a wild ride, with the\nrough roads and the drivers' habit of trotting over the spots where\nshell-holes showed that danger might linger. I held on in quite\nunmilitary fashion and wondered if the horse behind would be careful\nwhen I fell. But they brought me in safely and added one more means of\nlocomotion to the dozens which I had utilized at various times:\nammunition \"lorries,\" ambulances, side-cars and even a railway\nlocomotive--everything in fact except a tank.\n\nThe next day we breathed more freely again. Our tired boys, reduced in\nnumbers, weakened in physical resistance, but going forward day after\nday as their orders came, were at last to go out of the lines. Their job\nwas done; they had reached the Sambre Canal; and though we did not know\nit, they were not to go into battle again. I lorried back to Joncourt,\nthe temporary division headquarters, for the night, changed my clothes,\nslept in a borrowed cot, read a very heartening pile of home letters\nwhich had accumulated for some weeks, and returned to St. Souplet the\nnext day for the burial detail. It was the 21st of October; while the\ndivision as a whole marched back to the railhead, five chaplains with a\ndetail of a hundred and fifty men stayed behind for the sad work that\nremained to be done.\n\nAt this time I stopped off at the 108th Infantry for a few minutes, as\nthey halted for a meal after coming out of the lines, and had my\norderly, David Lefkowitz, detached from his unit to serve with me for my\nentire remaining period with the division. I had become acquainted with\nhim during my first few days in the division and found that he would be\ninterested to work with me as orderly and assistant. The order\nassigning him to this special work was made out before we left the woods\nat Buire. But our various units were so depleted at the time that I\narranged to leave him with his \"outfit\" for the battle. It was a serious\ndeprivation to me, as Lefkowitz had been through the earlier battle at\nthe Hindenburg Line and could have given me much assistance and advice\nin the front line work. Now that the fighting was over, he left his\ncompany to go with me and enjoy the comparative luxury of division\nheadquarters until he rejoined his company to sail home from France. He\nwas one of the many Jewish soldiers who welcomed the presence of a\nchaplain and gladly cooeperated in every possible way to make my work\nsuccessful.\n\nChaplain Francis A. Kelley, in charge of our burial work, laid out the\ncemetery on a hill overlooking the village and the battlefield. The rest\nof us searched the field with details of men, brought in the bodies on\nlimbers, searched and identified them as well as possible. In doubtful\ncases the final identification was made at the cemetery, where men from\nevery regiment were working and where most soldiers would have some one\nto recognize them. In addition, we buried German dead on the field,\nmarking the graves and keeping a record of their location for the Graves\nRegistration Service. A hundred and fifty-two men were buried there at\nSt. Souplet, the last cemetery of the Twenty-Seventh Division in their\nbattle grounds of France. The last body of all, found after the work had\nbeen finished and the men released from duty, was buried by us chaplains\nand the surgeon, who went out under the leadership of Father Kelley and\ndug the grave ourselves. Every evening the six of us gathered about our\ngrate fire and relaxed from the grim business of the day. If we had\nallowed ourselves to dwell on it, we would have been incapable of\ncarrying on the work: it was so ghastly, so full of pathetic and\nhorrible details. We sang, played checkers, argued on religion. Imagine\nus singing the \"Darktown Strutters' Ball,\" or discussing the fundamental\nprinciples of Judaism and Christianity for several hours! The five of us\nwere all of different creeds, too--Catholic, Baptist, Christian,\nChristian Scientist and Jew. Our cooeperation and our congeniality were\ntypical of the spirit of the service throughout.\n\nOn the last day we held our burial service. We gathered together at the\ncemetery with a large flag spread out in the middle of the plot. I read\na brief Jewish service, followed by Chaplains Bagby and Stewart in the\nProtestant and Father Kelley in the Catholic burial service, and at the\nend the bugle sounded \"taps\" for all those men of different faiths lying\nthere together. We could see and hear the shells bursting beyond the\nhill, probably a hostile scout had caught sight of us at work. Above\nfloated a British aeroplane. Some English soldiers working on their\nburial plot nearby stopped their digging and listened to our service.\n\nAnd so we said farewell to our lost comrades and to the war at the same\ntime.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nAFTER THE ARMISTICE\n\n\nAFTER the burial work at St. Souplet was over, great covered lorries\ntook us back the sixty miles or more to Corbie, in the vicinity of\nAmiens, which was to be our rest area. We greeted its paved streets, its\nfairly intact houses, its few tiny shops, as the height of luxury. Here\nand there a roof was destroyed or a wall down, for the enemy had come\nwithin three miles of Corbie in their drives earlier in the year. But we\nwere in rest and comparative plenty at last. We saw real civilians\nagain, not merely the few old people and little children left behind in\nthe towns we had liberated. We had regular meals again and a chance to\npurchase a few luxuries beside, such as French bread at a shop and hard\ncandy at the \"Y.\" We no longer heard the whine of the shell or whistle\nof the bullet, nor smelled gas, nor slept in cellars. I was even lucky\nenough to capture a thick spring mattress which, with my blankets, made\na bed that even a certain staff colonel envied me. A home-made grate in\nthe fire-place fitted it for a tiny coal fire; the window frames were\nre-covered with oiled paper; we read the London Daily Mail in its Paris\nedition only one day late, instead of seeing it every ten days and then\noften two weeks out of date.\n\nMy billet, which I obtained from the British town major, was a tall,\nnarrow house just off the principal square, very pleasant indeed in dry\nweather. Its chief defect was a huge shell-hole in the roof through\nwhich the water poured in torrents when it rained, so that we had to\ncover ourselves with our rubber shelter-halves when we slept at night.\nThe shell-hole, however, was a constant source of fuel, and we burned\nthe laths and wood-work, of which small pieces were lying all about the\ntop floor, until we found means to obtain a small but steady supply of\ncoal. The house afforded room, after I had preempted it, for the Senior\nChaplain of the Division, the Division Burial Officer and myself,\ntogether with our three orderlies.\n\nEven in dry weather there was some excitement about the old house. There\nwas the time when some tipsy soldiers, seeing the light in the Senior\nChaplain's room late at night, mistook the place for a cafe and came\nstumbling in for a drink. When they saw the chaplain, they suddenly\nsobered and accepted very gravely the drink of water he offered them\nfrom his canteen. On another day the old woman who owned the house came\nin with her son, a French lieutenant, to take away her furniture. We did\nnot mind losing the pretty inlaid table--we were soldiers and could\nstand that--but our mattresses and chairs were a different matter. None\nof us could argue with her torrential flow of French, but Lieutenant\nCurtiss, the Burial Officer, suddenly felt his real attack of flu\nredoubled in violence and had to take to his mattress. So the old lady\nfinally relented sufficiently to leave us our beds and a chair or two,\nwhile her son became our devoted friend at the price of an American\ncigar.\n\nI think that I shall never forget Corbie, with its narrow streets, its\nhalf-ruined houses, its great ancient church of gray, with one transept\na heap of ruins, and the straight rows of poplars on both sides of the\nSomme Canal,--a bit of Corot in the mist of twilight. I remember the\nquiet, gray square one day with the American band playing a medley from\nthe \"Chocolate Soldier,\" for all the world like a phonograph at home. I\nremember the great memorial review of the division by General O'Ryan in\nhonor of our men who had fallen; the staff stood behind the General at\nthe top of a long, gentle slope, with three villages in the distance,\nthe church looming up with its square, ruined tower, and the men spread\nout before us, a vanishing mass of olive drab against the dull shades of\nearly winter.\n\nI remember the day when three of us chaplains made the long trip back to\nour division cemeteries at St. Emelie, Bony and Guillemont Farm to read\nthe burial service over those many graves, the result of the terrible\nbattle at the Hindenburg Line. Chaplain Burgh, Protestant, of the 105th\nInfantry, Chaplain Eilers, Catholic, of the 106th Infantry, and I were\nsent back the fifty miles or more by automobile for this duty. It\nhappened that it rained that day, as on most days, and the car was an\nopen one. So the few soldiers still about in that deserted region had\nthe rare sight of three cold and dripping chaplains standing out in the\nmud and rain to read the burial services, one holding his steel helmet\nas an umbrella over the prayerbook from which the other read, and then\naccepting the same service in return. There was none of the panoply of\nwar, no bugle, firing party or parade, just the prayer uttered for each\nman in the faith to which he was born or to which he had clung. We did\nnot even know the religion of every man buried there, but we knew that\nour prayers would serve for all.\n\nWe were lucky to be in Corbie on November 11th when the armistice was\nsigned. Day after day we had stopped at Division Headquarters to inspect\nthe maps and study the color pins which were constantly moving forward\nacross France and Belgium. It was a study that made us all drunk with\nenthusiasm. We were under orders to move toward the front again on the\n9th of November and to enter the lines once more on November 14th. The\nmen had had very little rest and no fresh troops had come up to fill the\nlosses made by wounds, exposure and disease. Our men could never hold a\nfull divisional area now; only the knowledge of the wonders they had\nalready accomplished made us consider it possible that they could fight\nagain so soon. Time after time when their strength and spirit seemed\nboth exhausted they had responded and gone ahead. Now they deserved\ntheir rest.\n\nWe greeted the good news very calmly; the German prisoners were a little\nmore elated; the French went mad with ecstasy. It was the only time I\nhave ever seen Frenchmen drunk, heard them go home after midnight\nsinging patriotic songs out of key. In Amiens, where several thousand of\nthe inhabitants had returned by that time, the few restaurants were\ncrowded and gaiety was unrestrained. I heard a middle-aged British\nlieutenant sing the \"Marseillaise\" with a pretty waitress in the \"Cafe\nde la Cathedral\" the following evening, and respond when asked to repeat\nit in the main dining room. He returned to our side room decidedly\nredder than he had gone out. \"Why, the whole British general staff's in\nthere!\" he gasped. But he received only applause without a reprimand.\nThe war was over and for the moment all France was overcome with joy and\nall the allied armies with relief and satisfaction.\n\nAfter the armistice the front line work, with its absorption on the\nproblems of the wounded and the dead, became a thing of the past. The\nchaplain could now turn to the more normal aspects of his work, to\nreligious ministration, personal service, advice and assistance in the\nthousands of cases which came before him constantly. In fact, on the\nwhole his work became much the same as it had been in training camp in\nthe States. A few differences persisted; in France the chaplain was\nwithout the magnificent backing of the Jewish communities at home, which\nwere always so eager to assist in entertaining and helping the Jewish\nmen in the nearby camps. The Jewish Welfare Board with its excellent\nworkers could never cover the entire field as well as it could at home\nin America. Then there were special problems because the men were so far\naway from home, because the mail service was poor, because worries about\nallotments were more acute than if home had been nearer, and because the\nalien civilization and language never made the men feel quite\ncomfortable.\n\nIn the Corbie area the 27th Division was scattered about in twelve\nvillages, the farthest one eight miles from division headquarters.\nTransportation was still common on the roads, though often I had to walk\nand once I made the trip to Amiens in the cab of a locomotive when\nneither train nor truck was running, and found a ride back in an empty\nambulance which had brought patients to the evacuation hospital. The\nvillages were almost deserted, and were in rather bad condition after\ntheir nearness to the German advance of 1918, so that the men could be\ncrowded together and were very easy to reach in a body. I began making\nregular visits to the various units of the division, meeting the men,\nholding services, receiving their requests and carrying them out as well\nas possible. And I was constantly making new acquaintances, as the\nwounded and sick began coming back from the hospitals to rejoin the\ndivision.\n\nI had the opportunity of an occasional visit to Amiens, a city built for\na hundred thousand, but at the time inhabited by only a few thousand of\nthe more venturesome inhabitants, who had returned to open shops and\nrestaurants for the British, Australian and American troops. On account\nof lack of competition, prices were extreme even for France in war-time.\nThe great cathedral was piled high with sandbags to protect its precious\nsculptures, but it stood as always, the sentinel of the city, visible\nten miles away as one approached. The Church Army Hut of the British\nforces afforded separate accommodations for enlisted men and officers,\nand I had the pleasure of afternoon tea once or twice with some of the\nlatter. Amiens was an unsatisfactory place to shop, but my baggage had\nnot been found and winter was coming on fast, so I had to replace some\nof my possessions at once at any prices that might be demanded.\n\nOur mess held its formal celebration on November 17th, with Lieutenant\nRobert Bernstein, the French liaison officer, as the guest of honor\nbecause of his exact prediction of the date of the armistice when he had\nreturned from a visit to Paris several weeks previously. Our mess,\nofficers' mess number two of division headquarters, had an international\ncharacter through his presence and that of Captain Jenkins of the\nBritish army, and a special tone of comradeship through the influence of\nthe president of the mess, Major Joseph Farrell, the division disbursing\nofficer. So for once we had the rare treat of turkey and wine, feeling\nthat the occasion demanded it.\n\nI felt little pleasure in the jollity of the evening, however. I had\njust received a letter that day telling me of the death of one of my\ntwin babies of the flu; it had happened almost a month before, while I\nwas on the lines and quite out of reach of any kind of word. The war,\nthrough its attendant epidemics, gathered its victims also from among\nthe innocent, far from the scene of struggle. I felt then that my grief\nwas but a part of the universal sacrifice. With all these other parents,\nwhose older sons died at the front in actual fighting, or whose younger\nones were caught denuded of medical protection at home, I hoped that all\nthis sacrificial blood might bring an end to war. To-day that faith is\nharder and that consolation seems a mockery, for we seem to be preparing\nfor another struggle even while children are dying of hunger in central\nEurope and massacres of helpless Jews are still not yet ended in the\neast. When I received the news I took a long walk amid the most peaceful\nscene I ever knew, up the tree-lined banks of the Somme Canal, with the\nevening slowly coming on and the sun setting behind the stiff rows of\npoplars.\n\nAt last we were detached from the British Third Army and received orders\nto entrain for the American Embarkation Center (as it was later called)\nnear Le Mans. Our headquarters there were in the village of Montfort,\nwhere we arrived on Thanksgiving Day and stayed for three weary months.\nMontfort le Routrou is a village of nine hundred people, with one long\nstreet which runs up the hill and down the other side. The hill is\ncrowned with a typical village church and a really fine chateau, where\nthe General made his headquarters. The tiny gray houses seemed all to\ndate from the time of Henry of Navarre; my billet was a low cottage with\nstone walls over three feet thick, as though meant to stand a siege or\nto uphold a skyscraper. The floor was of stone, the grate large and fuel\nscarce, no artificial light available except candles. The bed alone was\nreal luxury, a typical French bed, high, narrow and very soft--an\nindescribable treat to a man who had slept on everything from an army\ncot to a cellar floor.\n\nThe surrounding country was rolling, with charming little hills and\nconstant knots of woods. The division, as we had known it on the British\nfront, was housed in forty villages, widely scattered about the\ncountryside, and our artillery, which had fought in the American sector,\nwas contained by ten more, located near Laval about fifty miles away.\nThe men lived chiefly in barns, as the houses were occupied by peasants,\nwho needed their own rooms. As far as the enlisted men were concerned,\nliving accommodations were better in partially ruined territory, where\nthey could at least occupy the houses, such as they were. Because we\nwere in a populous region, only smaller units could be billeted in a\nsingle village, which meant less access to places of amusement. The\ntypical French village has no single room large enough for even a\npicture show, except the one place of assembly, the church; apparently\nthe farmers and villagers have no amusements except drinking, dancing\n(in tiny, crowded rooms) and church attendance.\n\nSuch cheerless lives hardly suited the Americans. Often the men had to\nwalk a mile or more to the nearest Y. M. C. A. canteen, and those were\nimprovised on our arrival by our own divisional Y. M. C. A. staff, which\nwe had been permitted to bring with us on the earnest request of the\nchaplains of the division. After our long sojourn in the area, we left a\ncompletely equipped series of canteens and amusement buildings for the\nfollowing divisions. The nearest available place for light and warmth,\nout of the mud and chill, was usually the French cafe, and that was\navailable only when the men had money.\n\nThe greatest handicap on any effort for the morale of the men at the\noutset was the uncertainty of our situation. We were semi-officially\ninformed that our stay in the area would be for only a few weeks, and\nthat no formal program of athletics, education or entertainment could be\narranged. When life grows dreary and monotonous, as in the Embarkation\nCenter, the chief diet of the soldier is such rumors of going home. In\nour case three orders were promulgated for our troop movement, only to\nbe rescinded again while the wounded, sick and special small\ndetachments went ahead.\n\nAnother difficult problem was the one of covering ground. At the front\nit had been easy because the division was concentrated for action and\nbecause of the constant stream of trucks with their readiness of access.\nEven in the Corbie area the division had been so crowded together that\nseven services would reach every man who wanted to attend one or to meet\nme. At the rear the division would be billeted in villages, scattered\nabout over twenty miles of countryside; it was impossible to get from\nplace to place without transportation, and that was very scarce. The\narmy gave the chaplains more encouragement and friendship than actual\nfacilities for work; the chaplains' corps was just making its position\nstrong at the end of the war. Fortunately, the Jewish Welfare Board came\nto the rescue here. It procured Ford cars for the Jewish chaplains about\nthe first of the year 1919, thus doubling their scope for work and\nmaking them the envy of all the chaplains in France.\n\nMy work became a matter of infinite details, with little opportunity for\norganization but plenty for day labor. I arranged as many services as\npossible, getting to the various units by train, side-car, or walking\nuntil I obtained my own machine for the purpose. These services, from\none to ten a week, were arranged through the battalion chaplains as a\nrule, though sometimes I established connections with some of the Jewish\nboys or with the commanding officer, especially in cases of detached\ncompanies without any chaplain at hand. Every service had its share of\nrequests for information, advice, assistance, even for errands, as the\nmen had difficulty in getting to the city to have a watch repaired or in\nreaching divisional headquarters for information. Some men would want to\nknow about brothers or friends who had been wounded. Many had difficulty\nwith their allotments, in which case I worked through the army, Red\nCross, and Jewish Welfare Board. Others wanted information about\nrelatives in Poland or Roumania, or to be mustered out of service that\nthey might join and assist their parents in eastern Europe;\nunfortunately, neither information nor help was possible during the time\nwe were in France. Some men wished to remain for the Army of Occupation\nor other special service; far more were afraid they might be ordered to\nsuch service and wanted advice how to avoid it and return home as soon\nas possible. Citizenship papers, back pay, furloughs,--the requests were\nlegion, and the chaplain had no difficulty in being useful.\n\nNaturally, one of my tasks was to gather accurate statistics of the 65\nJewish boys in our division who had been killed, to find exactly where\nthey were buried, have their graves all marked with the _Magen David_,\nthe six-pointed star, and keep the list for the benefit of their\nfamilies when I should return. I even made one trip to Tours to discuss\nthe possibility of making such a list for the other divisions which came\ninto the area, though the task was too complicated to carry out\ncompletely in any but my own. Often men were lost to view entirely when\nthey went to hospital; sometimes it transpired months later that a\ncertain man had died or been assigned to another unit or sent back to\nthe States. But little by little the facts all came to light. Even here\nhumorous incidents would occur, such as the time when I read a list of\ndead from their unit at one battalion service, only to have one of the\nmen on the list speak up: \"Why, I'm not dead, Chaplain!\" It transpired\nthat this man had been wounded on the head in an advance and had been\nreported as dead by two comrades who had seen him fall. So I had him in\nmy records as \"killed in action--grave unknown,\" when he was actually in\nthe hospital, recovering slowly but completely. If he had been returned\nfrom the hospital to another division, as was often the case, I might\nnever have known his fate.\n\nIn spite of such conditions I found the exact graves of all but three of\nthe men on my list, and in the entire division, with its almost 2,000\ndead, only fifteen graves were unknown at the time we returned. This was\nlargely due to the untiring efforts of Lieutenant Summerfield S.\nCurtiss, the Division Burial Officer, who was my room-mate in Corbie and\nwith whose methods I became familiar at that time. With the cooeperation\nof the various chaplains and line officers, he was able to inspect and\ncertify to the valuables left by men killed in action, to record every\ngrave, and in the few instances where both identification tags and\npersonal acquaintances were lacking, to take the finger-prints of the\nmen before burial and thus preserve the only remaining traces of\nidentity.\n\nAt this time I had the opportunity of seeing our division reviewed by\nGeneral Pershing. The review was held at the Belgian Camp near Le Mans\nin massed formation. The men marched by in heavy masses; the General\nbestowed decorations on over a hundred heroes, including six Jewish\nboys; at the end he gave the officers an informal talk, telling us of\nthe special need that existed for keeping up morale during the tedious\nperiod of waiting to go home.\n\nThat very subject had been discussed only a few days before by the\nchaplains of the division, meeting with General O'Ryan for the purpose.\nChaplains' meetings were frequent, under the call of the Senior\nChaplain, Almon A. Jaynes, where we took up not only details, such as\narrangement of services in the various units, but also the broader moral\nand educational problems. The General's interest in our work and our\naims was evident in every word spoken at the meeting, especially his\nsearching queries as to drunkenness, dissatisfaction, and remedies for\nsuch evils as we brought out.\n\nThe three months of waiting had been in many ways harder than the\nprevious months of battle. Interest in our military purpose was gone;\nthe men had few amusements and much work to fill in their time. We had\nvery little athletic or educational effort; that was prevented by our\nconstant expectation of an early departure. Mail service was often bad,\nespecially for the men who had been transferred repeatedly. Pay was\nunreliable when a man had been transferred or sent to hospital and his\nrecords lost or mixed up. And the French winter is a rainy season, with\noccasional days of clear cold. No wonder that the soldiers were\ndisgusted with France, war, army and everything else. In the midst of\nthis growing irritation, their pet phrase became, \"Little old U. S. A.\nis good enough for me.\"\n\nThe average soldier did not meet the better class of French people, only\nthe peasants and the prostitutes of the towns. He had little taste for\nthe wonderful architectural and historical treasures of the country; he\ncould not speak the language beyond his elementary needs; and--one of\nhis great objections--the French undeniably have poor plumbing and\nbathing facilities.\n\nOn the other hand, the French country people did not like our soldiers\nover much. The soldier of any nation was rather noisy, rather rough, and\nhad no idea whatever of property values. He took anything he needed,\nsimply \"finding\" it, the worst possible trait to thrifty French country\npeople. Then, talking only a few words of French, the American naturally\nleft out phrases like \"monsieur\" or \"s'il vous plait,\" and he was\nconsidered to be ignorant of ordinary politeness, a wild Indian, the\nbrother of the savage still supposed to be thronging our plains. A small\nminority of our men did penetrate into French life and grew to love it;\na minority of the French made the acquaintance of Americans and came to\nrespect them. Unfortunately, the two peoples were introduced to each\nother under most unfavorable circumstances.\n\nThese conditions, together with the constant flood of rumors, had the\nworst possible influence on the spirit of the men, which went down\nsteadily from its magnificent power at the front, until the news of our\nactual orders to move toward Brest brought it suddenly up again. As the\nfirst division in the American Embarkation Center on the way home, we\nhad to suffer for the later units, all of which had a program of\nathletics, entertainments and schools ready for them when they arrived.\nWorking to build up the spirit of the men under the most discouraging\ncircumstances, we received a powerful object lesson of the influences\nmost destructive to morale.\n\nThe value of my work was at least doubled by the Ford touring car lent\nme by the Jewish Welfare Board. I received it on New Year's Day, 1919,\nin Paris and drove back to Le Mans, almost transfigured by the fact. My\ndriver, assigned for the trip only, was splendid; I could stop for a\nbrief view of the chateau and park at Versailles and the cathedral of\nChartres; I knew that from that time on I could go from unit to unit so\nlong as the machine stuck together and the army store of gasoline held\nout. With this car I was able to visit the artillery in the Laval area,\nabout fifty miles from our headquarters, and conduct one service in each\nof their regiments. The artillery had not been on the British front at\nall, but on the American, so they had quite different adventures from\nours. They had supported several other American infantry units in the\nSt. Mihiel sector and north of Verdun, and had received mercifully few\ncasualties compared with our infantrymen and engineers. The trip to them\nby car was unusually delightful, over smooth roads which the great army\ntrucks had not yet ruined, through country where American soldiers were\na rarity and the children would crowd the doorways to cheer us as we\nwent by; over the gentle wooded hills of western France, with the trees\nhung with mistletoe; through the tiny gray villages, with their quaint\nRomanesque churches, many of them older than the great Gothic cathedrals\nof the north.\n\nWhile in Paris on New Year, I enjoyed the rare treat of a family dinner\nat the home of my friend Georges Levy, an interpreter with our\ndivision. Through him and Lieutenant Bernstein I reached some sort of an\nimpression of the state of French Jewry to-day. To tell the truth,\nneither I nor the average Jewish soldier received a very flattering\nimpression. The shadow of the Dreyfus case seemed still to hang over the\nJews of France. They feared to speak a word of Yiddish, which was often\ntheir only mode of communication with the American Jewish soldiers. One\nshopkeeper, asked whether he was a Jew, took the visitor far in the rear\nout of hearing of any possible customers before replying in the\naffirmative.\n\nFor one thing, except in Paris and the cities of eastern France, Jews\nexist only in very small groups. I have mentioned the four families of\nNevers and the little synagogue of Tours, with its seventy-five seats.\nLe Mans possesses an old street named \"Rue de la Juiverie,\" so that at\none time there must have been enough Jews to need a Ghetto, but in 1919\nLe Mans had only four resident Jewish families and one or two more of\nrefugees from the occupied territory.\n\nAnother menace to the loyalty of Jews is the general difficulty of all\nreligious liberalism in France. Religion to most people in France means\northodoxy, Jewish and Catholic; this naturally suits only those of\nconservative background or temperament. Almost the only other movement\nis irreligious in literature, art, government and philosophy. Those\nlarge groups of liberals who in America would be adherents of liberal\nmovements, Jewish or Christian, in France are usually entirely alienated\nfrom religion. The liberals are intelligent but weak in numbers. As a\nconverse of this, the synagogue is largely content with past glories,\nmaking little effort to adjust itself either in thought or organization\nto the conditions of the time. The American Jews were always interested\nto hear about the Jews of France, of the greatness of Rashi in former\ndays, and eager to inquire about the present status. They never could\nquite understand the condition of a country where the government had\nbeen divided for years by a pro and anti-Jewish issue, as was the\nsituation at the time of the Dreyfus case. American democracy, even in\nthe young and unskilled mind of the average soldier, had no concept for\nanti-Semitism.\n\nWhen we knew finally that the division was on its way home, I preferred\na request through General O'Ryan that I should go home with it. But G.\nH. Q. Chaplains' Office could not grant my wish; there were too few\nchaplains of all religions overseas; and we Jews in particular needed\nevery worker there. I was detached and assigned to the Le Mans area,\nunder the senior chaplain of the American Embarkation Center. Naturally,\nI regretted deeply seeing my old comrades go without me. I reported at\nLe Mans, obtained fourteen days leave to the Riviera, which had been due\nme for over two months, and said good-by. The Twenty-Seventh was the\nfirst division to reach the Embarkation Center, the first to leave for\nhome as a unit, and it finally paraded, without its Jewish chaplain, up\nFifth Avenue to a tremendous ovation. I studied the pictures several\nweeks later in the New York papers, and actually thought I saw the\nvacant place in the column where I should have been.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nAT THE AMERICAN EMBARKATION CENTER\n\n\nWhen I knew for certain that I was to remain in France I asked for my\ntwo weeks' leave and departed for the Riviera via Paris. It was my\nfourth visit to the metropolis, a city which grows only more wonderful\nat every view. Its boulevards and parks, public buildings and shops were\nalways attractive; in addition, the art treasures were now beginning to\ncome back to their places, and the crowds were taking on the gaiety of\npeace time in the brilliantly lighted streets, so different from the\nsober groups and dismal streets during the war. This trip carried me\nbeyond to a land of myriad attractions and surpassing loveliness. The\nmediaeval monuments of Avignon, the Roman antiquities of Arles and Nimes,\nthe splendid modern city of Marseilles, Toulon with its quaint streets\nand charming harbor, Hyeres of the palm trees, and on to Cannes, to\nNice, that greater Atlantic City, Grasse with its flowers and perfumes,\nand Monte Carlo, garden spot of the whole--all blended in a mosaic whose\nbrilliant colors can never fade. Overhanging mountains and sub-tropical\nsea together unite all the types of attraction of all beautiful lands\nthe world over. The palms and flowers never seemed quite real to me,\nwhile one was quite bewildered by the works of man--ancient monuments,\nmediaeval art, and the most modern trappings of contemporary play and\nluxury.\n\nAt Cannes I met Captain Limburger, in charge of the Motor Transportation\nCorps there, who helped me to reach the officers' convalescent hospital\nat Hyeres to search for a friend. The trip of eighty-five miles by\nside-car was the bright particular spot in the whole gorgeous festival\nof the Coast of Azure, up the heights of the Maritime Alps into the\nclouds and down again to the edge of the blue inland sea, past ruined\ncastles of the Roman time and through the quaint southern villages of\nnowadays; ending finally at the hospital, which turned out to be the San\nSalvador, one of the most splendid winter hotels on the Mediterranean. I\neven heard Francis Macmillan, a captain in the intelligence corps, give\na violin concert for the officers during my one evening there.\n\nNice and the surrounding territory were crowded by Americans, as it was\nthe most popular leave area for the American army. The great casino on\nthe pier was the Y. M. C. A. for enlisted men, while the officers had\ntheir club on the square. In fact, all the arrangements by the \"Y\" in\nthe various leave areas were magnificent. This, probably its most\nsuccessful single piece of work, has hardly received the attention it\ndeserves. I found the same to be true of every leave area I visited,\nincluding Grenoble, where I stopped for a day among the Alps on my\nreturn trip. Altogether the brief fourteen days were one of those\nunforgettable experiences which linger in the memory. One of the fine\nachievements of the army was that it was able to give an experience such\nas this to many thousands of officers and enlisted men, for their own\nelevation and their greater knowledge of France.\n\nI should like to emphasize, if I could, the importance of the leave\nareas for the morale of the troops and their better appreciation of\nFrance. During actual hostilities men were willing to give up their\nleave, especially Americans who could not visit their homes but wanted\nonly a change. After the war, however, military discipline became\nconstantly more irksome to the soldiers, and the week or two without\norders, in a real hotel with sheets and tablecloths, sight-seeing or\nmerely resting, was the one thing necessary to bring them back to their\nunits content to work and wait till their turn came to go back home. It\nwas also a rare opportunity to see the best side of France and the\nFrench, when they had seen only the worst. No soldier admired the France\nof the war zone, with its ruined villages, its waste stretches, and its\nshell holes. Neither did he care for the France of the rest areas, where\nhe knew only the smallest villages, with the least attractive people to\na young progressive from the western world. Now he was able to enjoy the\nbeauty and luxury of that older and more sophisticated civilization\nwhich always considered him either an amiable savage or a spoiled child.\n\nThe trip back to Paris and Le Mans was an experience in itself. I met\nthree young and congenial medical officers on the train, with whom I\ntraveled the rest of the way, stopping off for a half day at the little\nknown town of Digne in the Basse Alps, where we saw the ancient church\nwith its crypt, the art gallery with its painters of local prominence,\nand the old Roman sulphur baths, still used to-day. Another day at\nGrenoble brought us into the heart of the French Alps. We reveled in the\ncity with the snow-caps about. I felt the usual thrill at the tomb of\nthe Chevalier Bayard, and more than ordinary pleasure in the beauty of\nthe city itself.\n\nI now settled down at Le Mans for the work of the Embarkation Center. Le\nMans is too well known to Americans who have recently been in France to\nrequire much description. It is a city of about 75,000 people, with the\ncustomary narrow streets in the heart of the town, the fine parks and\nboulevards of every French city, and the very interesting cathedral\noverlooking the whole. There are fragments of the old Roman walls of the\nthird century, and as an ironic contrast a fine street running through a\ntunnel which is named after Wilbur Wright, whose decisive experiments in\naerial navigation were carried on nearby. My billet was a pleasant home\nopposite the very lovely park, the English Gardens, and my landlady a\ntiny old gentlewoman, who used to bring me a French breakfast and a\nFrench newspaper every morning, and indulge in the most formal\ncompliments, reminding me of a romance of the Third Empire. And for some\ntime Le Mans was the center of 200,000 American troops on their way\nhome!\n\nInstead of one division to cover, I now had from three to six, varying\nas units came from their old locations and departed on their way to\nAmerica. And if it had been impossible to cover one division thoroughly,\nin a great area such as this a chaplain could do only day labor. I\ntraveled from one point to another, had a schedule of services almost\nevery night of the week in a different camp, visited the transient\ndivisions as they came in, and thus came into the intimate contact with\nthe men by which alone I could be of use to them. The territory was an\nimmense one, though much of the time I did not have to cover it alone.\nThe 77th and 26th Divisions had Jewish chaplains while they were with\nus; Chaplain James G. Heller was associated with me until he was\ntransferred to the Second Army (in fact, he was in Le Mans while I was\nstill with the 27th), and after his departure Rabbi Reuben Kaufman of\nthe J. W. B. was assigned to religious work under my direction. But even\nso the task was staggering. So many regiments and companies scattered\nover an area eighty miles long and sixty miles wide was no feasible\nproposition, even with the best of cars and a sergeant to drive it for\nme.\n\nIn addition to the billeting accommodations in every village, the area\ncontained several large camps of importance. The Classification Camp,\nwithin the city, was an old French barracks turned over to our use,\nwhich housed a constantly changing stream of casuals and replacements,\nflowing from hospitals, camps and schools toward their various units.\nThe Spur Camp held a large group of construction units, engineers and\nbakers. The Forwarding Camp was a replica of a training camp at home,\nand contained a division at a time, at first in training, later in\ntransit toward the ports. The Belgian Camp, originally built for Belgian\nrefugees, now had long rows of wooden barracks for soldiers, a huge and\nalways busy rifle range, and special camps of various types, including\none for venereal patients, who underwent a mixture of medical treatment\nand discipline.\n\nThe purpose of the Embarkation Center was to provide a stopping place on\nthe way to the busy ports of Brest and St. Nazaire, where the men might\nbe deloused, have fresh clothing and equipment issued to them, undergo\nthorough inspections of every kind, and in all ways be divested of the\neffects of war and prepared to return to America. This task usually took\na month or more, but sometimes a division had been partially equipped in\nits former area and if the ships happened to be ready it might stay in\nour area less than a week. On the other hand, it might not pass the\nvarious inspections at once, or at the time the transportation home\nmight be lacking, and hence its departure would be delayed time and\nagain. This uncertainty of tenure made all work very difficult,\nespecially work such as the chaplains' which depended entirely on\npersonal contact.\n\nThe problem of these divisions, as of the 27th, was chiefly to preserve\nthe splendid morale of the front while the men were in the dreary tedium\nof waiting. This was done by cutting down the drill to an hour a day,\nwhich made enough work in addition to the delousing, inspecting and\nother necessary activities. The rest of the time was devoted to\nathletics, an educational program, and a great amount of entertainment,\nall three under the Welfare Officer appointed by the commanding general\nof the Embarkation Area, while all the welfare agencies contributed to\nthese various ends under his general supervision. My work, of course,\nwas directly under the Senior Chaplain, according to army regulation.\nAnd as the various units moved toward their goal more rapidly and more\nsteadily, the need for special efforts to keep up morale grew less. Men\nkeep up their own morale when they really know they are going home; the\ndifficulties had been largely caused by the complete uncertainty and\nendless delays.\n\nSuch success as I had was due very largely to the excellent cooeperation\nof the Jewish Welfare Board. Sergeant Charles Rivitz, who had charge of\nthe work in the area, was deeply interested in the welfare of the boys\nand shared the resources of the organization freely with me in my work.\nI had always found this same attitude; the J. W. B. furnished me a car,\nan allowance for welfare work, an office in its building, and offered\nits rooms for services in the various camps. Where it had no huts, I was\naccorded the same privilege by the Y. M. C. A. Whenever its aid fell\nshort, it was because it had no more to give. By this time Le Mans had a\nlarge and active group of J. W. B. workers, both men and girls, with\ntheir center in the city and huts in many surrounding points. I found\nthe workers' mess the most friendly and pleasant in the city, quite as\ncongenial as the one at the Junior Officers' Club, which I often\nfrequented.\n\nEven in the stress and turmoil of the Le Mans area (\"the madhouse,\" as\nthe boys called it) striking or humorous personalities appeared from\ntime to time. There was Abie, the wandering musician, a little Jew who\nhad a gift for rag-time but no great intelligence, military or\notherwise. Abie had gone to France with a replacement unit, was located\nnear Le Mans and spent his spare time playing for the Y. M. C. A. and\nthe officers' dances. When his unit moved toward the front to be\nincorporated in some fighting division, he stayed behind, not as a\ndeserter, but to play the piano for the \"outfits\" that followed. He\nmanaged even to live at the local hotel by the tips they gave him. After\nthat time he reported, giving his full story in detail, to every\ncommanding officer who entered the village, always to be given enough to\neat, but never accepted into any unit as he had no transfer from his\noriginal one. At last his story got abroad, he was brought in by the\nCriminal Investigation Department and investigated, only to prove the\ntruth of his every word. So Abie, happy once more, was stationed in the\nClassification Camp and detailed to the Jewish Welfare Board as a\npianist, improvising his rag-time adaptations of serious music and\ngetting many privileges and a steady income for doing the work he\nenjoyed best.\n\nA different sort of man was the soldier in a famous fighting division,\nwho sought a private interview with me. It seems that in the advance on\nthe St. Mihiel sector he had rescued a Torah, a scroll of the Law, from\na burning synagogue. Throwing away the contents of his pack, he had\nwrapped the scroll up in the pack carrier instead, and carried it \"over\nthe top\" three times since. Now he wanted permission to take it home to\ngive to an orphan asylum in which his father was active. A soldier was\nnot ordinarily allowed to take anything with him besides the regulation\nequipment and such small souvenirs as might occupy little room, but in\nthis case a kindly colonel became interested and the Torah went to\nAmerica with the company records.\n\nThe great event of my service in Le Mans was our Passover celebration on\nApril 14th, 15th and 16th, 1919. The general order for Passover\nfurloughs read:\n\n     \"Where it will not interfere with the public service, members of\n     the Jewish faith serving with the American Expeditionary Forces\n     will be excused from all duty from noon, April 14th, to midnight,\n     April 16th, 1919, and, where deemed practicable, granted passes to\n     enable them to observe the Passover in their customary manner.\"\n\nAmong the central points designated for Passover leaves was Le Mans, and\nthe Jewish Welfare Board and I labored to arrange a full celebration for\nthe thousand Jewish soldiers who came in from four different divisions.\nQuarters were provided in the Classification Camp for all the men who\ndid not have the money or the previous arrangements for hotel rooms, as\nwell as full accommodations for the Passover feast, the Seder. The\nJewish Welfare Board obtained full supplies of Matzoth, unleavened\nbread, as well as Haggadoth, or special prayer books for the Seder.\n\nThe spirit was as strong a contrast as possible to that of my other\ngreat service at the fall holydays. Among our congregation were two men\nfrom the isolated post of military police at St. Calais, fifty miles to\nthe east, and five from among the students at the University of Rennes,\na hundred miles west. We had a number of officers among us, while five\nFrench families, several Jews in the horizon blue of the French army,\nand two in the Russian uniform--labor battalions, since Russia had\nwithdrawn from the war--worshiped beside us. And when the crowd began to\nassemble, the first men I saw were a group of engineers whom I had not\nseen since Atonement Day, seven months before. They were on the way home\nnow, their presence emphasizing more strongly than anything else the\nchange that had come to us and the world in the intervening time. Again\nthere were the meetings of friends and brothers, but without the pang of\nparting afterward. One of the most touching features of the Seder was\nthe large number of requests that I should inquire whether Sergeant Levi\nor Private Isaacs was present. Then how the whole gathering would be\nelectrified when a voice cried out, \"Here,\" and cousins or comrades who\nhad not known even of each other's safety were able to exchange festal\ngreetings and rejoice together.\n\nFor the two and a half days' leave the Jewish Welfare Board and I tried\nto keep the men busy, with something for every taste. The full program\nincluded a Seder, four services, a literary program, a vaudeville show,\na boxing exhibition, two dances and a movie. All were well patronized,\nfor the soldier had a cultivated taste in diversion, especially after\nthe armistice. But certainly the most popular of all was the Seder. The\nsoup with matzah balls, the fish, in fact the entire menu made them\nthink of home. We held the dinner in an army mess hall, standing at the\nbreast-high tables. The altar with two candles and the symbols of the\nfeast was at the center of the low-roofed unwalled structure. Toward\nevening the rain, so typical of winter in western France, ceased; the\nsun came out, and its last level rays shone directly upon Rabbi Kaufman\nand his little altar. It was a scene never to be forgotten, a feast of\ndeepest joy mingled with solemnity. Afterward we adjourned to the\nTheatre Municipale for a full religious service with a sermon. Two of\nthe shows of the festival leave were too big for the hall of the Jewish\nWelfare Board, so we were offered the Y. D. Hut, the great auditorium of\nthe Y. M. C. A., which had been named after the famous 26th Division.\nOne of these entertainments was the last performance in France of the\n\"Liberty Players\" of the 77th Division, who were about to leave for the\nStates that very week.\n\nFinally my work in France drew to a close. On the first of May, 1919, I\nreceived the orders for which I had been hoping so long. I was to be\nrelieved and sent home to America. Rabbis in the uniform of the Jewish\nWelfare Board were now at hand, the number of men in France was\ndecreasing, and my request to be relieved could at last be granted. A\nfinal two days in Paris for a conference with the heads of the J. W. B.,\nChaplain Voorsanger and Colonel Harry Cutler, another day at Le Mans to\nturn my records and office over to Rabbis Kaufman and Leonard Rothstein,\nand then I was off to Brest. I had the special good fortune of being\nheld in that busy and rather uninviting place for only four days and\nthen finding passage assigned me on the slow but comfortable _Noordam_,\nof the Holland-American Line. My last duty in Brest was to conduct a\nfuneral, in the absence of the post chaplain, of four sailors drowned in\nan accident just outside the harbor. We had a guard of honor, a bugler,\nall naval, and I had the rare experience of an army chaplain conducting\na navy funeral, as well as of a rabbi burying four Christian boys.\n\nWe were at sea twelve days altogether, being delayed by a gale of three\ndays and also by a call for aid, which took us a hundred miles out of\nour course without finding the sender of the message. We entered New\nYork harbor late one evening, and anchored off Staten Island for the\nnight. There was little sleep that night; the officers danced with the\ncabin passengers, while the men sang on the decks below. The next\nmorning early every one was at the rail as we steamed in past the Statue\nof Liberty, which stood for so much to us now, for which we had longed\nso often, and which some of our company had never expected to see again.\nAfter the customary half day of formalities at the dock, we were\ndirected to different camps for discharge according to our branches of\nthe service. I reported at Camp Dix, New Jersey, where I was mustered\nout of service, receiving my honorable discharge on May 26th, 1919,\neleven months from the date of my commission, nine of which were spent\nwith the American Expeditionary Forces.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE JEWISH CHAPLAINS OVERSEAS\n\n\nMy experiences, which were fairly typical throughout, showed clearly the\ngreat need for Jewish chaplains in the army overseas. Even my trip on\nleave to the Riviera was typical, showing the effect of release from\ndiscipline combined with a pleasure trip on thousands of our soldiers,\nmost of whom needed it far more than I; for the privileges of a\nchaplain, just a little greater than those of most officers, certainly\nhad prevented my morale falling as low as that of many of the enlisted\nmen. The Jewish chaplain was not only a concession to the very\nconsiderable body of Jewish citizens who felt that they should be\nrepresented in the military organization as well as men of other faiths;\nhe had a definite contribution to make to the moral and spiritual\nwelfare of the forces. We had to conduct Jewish religious services for\nboth holydays and ordinary seasons, to assist the dying Jew, and to pray\nfor him at his grave. We had to defend the Jewish boys in the rare cases\nof prejudice against them, or, what was just as important, to clear up\nsuch accusations when they were unfounded. We had to serve the special\nneeds of the Jewish soldier, whatever they might be, at the same time\nthat we did the chaplain's duty toward all soldiers with whom we might\nbe thrown.\n\nThe American Expeditionary Forces never had sufficient chaplains at any\ntime for the work that was planned for them. The proportion desired by\nthe G. H. Q. Chaplains' Office and approved by the war department was\none chaplain to every thousand men, or one to an infantry battalion,\nbesides those assigned to administrative work as senior chaplains of\ndivisions and areas, and the very large number detailed to hospitals.\nThe total number of chaplains who went to France was 1285, just half the\nnumber needed by this program, and from this total we must subtract a\nconsiderable group of deaths, wounds and other casualties. The\nchaplains' corps was undermanned at all times,--we Jews were simply the\nmost conspicuous example. Compared to the general proportion of one\nchaplain to every two thousand men, and the ideal one of a chaplain to\nevery thousand, we had one chaplain to every eight thousand men, and\nthose tremendous numbers were not even concentrated in a few units but\nscattered through every company, every battery, and every hospital ward\nin the army.\n\nThe British forces contained one Jewish chaplain for every army\nheadquarters, or nine in all. I had the pleasure of meeting Rabbi\nBarnett, the chief Jewish chaplain in the B. E. F., although I never met\nhis predecessor, Major Adler. Through their long experience and the\ncooeperation of the Chief Rabbi of England, the English chaplains were\nwell equipped with suitable prayerbooks and other material, which I\nobtained from one of them for the use of our men while I was on the\nBritish front. Still, even with their larger proportion of chaplains to\nthe Jews in service, the lack of transportation facilities and the\ntremendous rush of war-time, especially at the front and in the\nhospitals, made their actual duties impossible of complete fulfillment.\n\nTo cover the enormous field before us was plainly impossible. The\nchaplain could only work day by day, clearing a little pathway ahead of\nhim but never making an impression on the great jungle about. When I\nfirst reached France, I grew accustomed to the greeting: \"Why, you're\nthe first Jewish chaplain I've met in France!\" That was hard enough\nthen, but it grew harder when the same words were addressed me in Brest\njust before sailing and on shipboard on the way home. And yet it was\ninevitable that twelve chaplains could not meet personally the hundred\nthousand Jewish soldiers scattered through the two millions in the\nAmerican uniform through the length and breadth of France. Under these\ncircumstances we all feel a natural pride at the work accomplished\nagainst adverse conditions. I for one feel that we did all that twelve\nmen similarly situated could possibly have done, and I gladly bring my\npersonal tribute to those others, chaplains, welfare workers, officers,\nand enlisted men, whose cooeperation doubled and trebled the actual\nextent and effectiveness of our work. This includes especially the\nChristian chaplains and welfare workers; their own field was great\nenough to take all their time and energy, but they were always ready to\nturn aside for a moment to lend a hand to us, in order that the labors\nof twelve men serving their faith in the great American army might not\nbe quite futile.\n\nThe first of the Jewish chaplains to reach France was Rabbi Elkan C.\nVoorsanger, who gave up his pulpit in St. Louis in April, 1917, to join\nthe St. Louis Base Hospital as a private in the medical corps. As his\nhospital unit was the third to reach France in May, 1917, Rabbi\nVoorsanger was one of the first five hundred American soldiers in the\nAmerican Expeditionary Forces. In the medical corps he rose from private\nto sergeant, gaining at the same time an intimate first-hand knowledge\nof the problems of the man in the ranks. When the bill was passed by\nCongress in November, 1917, ordering the appointment of chaplains of\nsects not at that time represented in the army, Rabbi Voorsanger was the\nfirst Jew commissioned under its provisions. He was examined by a\nspecial board appointed overseas by General Pershing at the direction of\nthe Secretary of War; his commission was dated November 24th, 1917. In\nJanuary 1918 he was assigned to the 41st Division and in March to Base\nHospital 101 at St. Nazaire. While posted there he conducted his first\nimportant service overseas in Passover 1918, the first official Jewish\nservice held in the A. E. F. He was assigned to the 77th Division in May\n1918 on their arrival in France where he served with a most enviable\nrecord, receiving the Croix de Guerre and being recommended for the D.\nS. M. for exceptional courage and devotion to duty in time of danger.\nThe midnight patrol on the banks of the Meuse, by which he won these\nhonors, was both a courageous and a useful exploit. He was promoted to\nSenior Chaplain of his division with the rank of Captain, the only Jew\nso distinguished. Finally in April 1919, instead of accompanying his\ndivision home he resigned his commission to become the head of the\noverseas work of the Jewish Welfare Board. He returned to the United\nStates in September 1919, after two and a half years with the American\nExpeditionary Forces. Since that time he has continued his\nself-sacrifice and his devotion to his people in the service of the\nJoint Distribution Committee for the Relief of Jews in eastern Europe.\nIn 1920 and 1921 he conducted two relief units to Poland and carried on\ntheir life-saving work.\n\nWhen I arrived in France, Chaplain Voorsanger was stationed at Chaumont\nfor the time being, to take charge of the arrangements for the Jewish\nholydays of 1918. I have already described how these were carried out,\nby designating central points for services, getting in touch with the\nFrench rabbis and synagogue authorities and assigning the few American\nrabbis at hand to fill in the deficiencies.\n\nI was the fifth Jewish chaplain to reach France. Those who preceded me\nwere first Voorsanger and then Chaplains David Tannenbaum of the 82nd\nDivision, Harry S. Davidowitz of the 78th and Louis I. Egelson of the\n91st. All these men served at the front, as did also Chaplain Benjamin\nFriedman of the 77th Division, who took up the Jewish work of that unit\nwhen Chaplain Voorsanger was promoted to the Senior Chaplaincy. Chaplain\nDavidowitz was the only Jewish chaplain to be wounded, receiving severe\ninjuries from shrapnel; these put him in the hospital for several months\nand occasioned his being sent back home, invalided, the first of us all.\nThe others, in order of their arrival, were Chaplains Jacob Krohngold,\nof the 87th Division; Israel Bettan of the 26th Division; Harry\nRichmond, at the port of Bordeaux; Elias N. Rabinowitz, at Blois;\nSolomon B. Freehof, at First Army Headquarters; and James G. Heller, at\nLe Mans. The last two left New York on the day following the armistice,\nso that on November eleventh, 1918, the Jews of America were represented\noverseas by just ten chaplains and two representatives of the Jewish\nWelfare Board, Rev. Dr. Hyman G. Enelow and Mr. John Goldhaar.\n\nThe twelve of us represented all three Jewish seminaries in this\ncountry, although the majority were naturally from the oldest, the\nHebrew Union College at Cincinnati, where Rabbi Freehof was even a\nmember of the faculty. We came from every section of the country, east,\nwest and south, including Krohngold and myself from little towns in\nKentucky and Richmond from Trinidad, Colorado. Rabbi Richmond had the\nunusual distinction of not claiming exemption in the draft as a\nminister. He therefore entered the service as a private and was promoted\nto the chaplaincy just before his division went overseas.\n\nThe chaplains who were commissioned before the armistice and served in\nthe United States were thirteen in number; Rabbis Nathan E. Barasch,\nHarry W. Etteleson, Max Felshin, Samuel Friedman, Raphael Goldenstein,\nAbram Hirschberg, Morris S. Lazaron, Emil W. Leipziger, Julius A.\nLiebert, Abraham Nowak, Jerome Rosen, Leonard W. Rothstein, Israel J.\nSarasohn. Three of them, Rabbis Rothstein, Felshin and Barasch, soon\nafter resigned their commissions and came overseas as representatives of\nthe Jewish Welfare Board. When the great need for morale agencies was\nrealized after the armistice, the War Department refused to relax its\nprohibition against the transportation of more chaplains or other\nspecial branches of the service, but favored the passage of large\nnumbers of welfare workers instead. Rabbi David Goldberg was the only\nJewish chaplain in the navy, with the rank of Lieutenant, junior grade;\nhe served at sea on the transport, President Grant.\n\nWe were almost all reassigned as our divisions left for home and as the\nneed grew in various areas, especially in the base posts and the Army of\nOccupation. Chaplain Davidowitz was sent home wounded, and Friedman\naccompanied his own division back. Krohngold, Bettan, Heller and Freehof\njoined the Army of Occupation in the order named, although for a long\ntime Rabbi Krohngold was the only Jewish chaplain there. Rabbi Egelson\nleft his division for the port of St. Nazaire, Rabinowitz was\ntransferred from Blois to St. Aignan, and I was left behind at Le Mans\ntogether with Heller, who shortly after was transferred to the Third\nArmy in Germany. Tannenbaum while stationed at Bordeaux was also, by\nspecial arrangement, appointed as supervisor of the Jewish Welfare Board\nfor that area; and Voorsanger was mustered out of service to become\nexecutive director of their overseas work. Rabbi Richmond alone held the\nsame post to the very end of his overseas service.\n\nAs I have mentioned repeatedly in my personal narrative, so long as a\nman was assigned to one division he had some chance of establishing\npersonal contacts with his men and doing effective work among them; as\nsoon as he was assigned to an area, he had to spread himself thin over a\nwide expanse of territory and could cover it in only the most cursory\nfashion. The problem was larger than the matter of transportation,\nalthough that was serious enough. The larger aspect lay in the number of\nmen, the number of companies, the infinite possibility of individual\nservice if one were only able to know all these soldiers personally, to\nunderstand their needs, and to minister to them. Every hospital ward\nwith its forty beds presented forty distinct individual\nproblems,--often, indeed, more than forty. Sometimes the same man would\nneed pay, mail, home allotment, reading matter, and contact with his\noriginal unit and comrades. With the constant shifting to other\nhospitals further from the front and then to convalescent camps, the\nward would always contain a new forty men and the work was always\nbeginning over again. This situation was not in the least unique. The\nhospital simply represents the extreme case of what was true in a less\ndegree in every branch of the service and every unit.\n\nDuring the post-armistice period I had several very agreeable reunions\nwith my fellow chaplains, which were at the same time valuable for our\ncommon information and cooeperation. At my very first visit to Le Mans,\non December 6th, I quite unexpectedly met Chaplains Freehof, Bettan, and\nHeller, as well as Rabbi Enelow, who had just come to the city for the\ndedication of the J. W. B. headquarters. I devoured their comparatively\nfresh news from home as eagerly as Voorsanger had absorbed mine several\nmonths before, when he was already entering his second year in France.\nThe second time was on the last day of the year, when I met Rabbis\nFriedman, Egelson and Rabinowitz in Paris, all coming there as I did for\nthe cars which the J. W. B. had ready for us. At the same time Rabbis\nMartin Meyer of San Francisco and Abram Simon of Washington were in the\ncity, both captains in the American Red Cross. Their six months of duty\nin France had just expired and they were then making ready for their\nreturn home. We all had dinner together at one of the famous Parisian\nrestaurants and discussed war and peace, France, America and Israel,\nuntil the early closing laws of war-time sent us all out on the\nboulevards and home. Chaplain Egelson and I saw the New Year in\ntogether, first hearing \"Romeo and Juliet\" at the Opera and then\nwatching the mad crowds on the streets, headed always by American or\nAustralian soldiers, the maddest of them all.\n\nThe most important meeting, however, was the one called by Chaplain\nVoorsanger for February 24th at the Paris headquarters of the Jewish\nWelfare Board. Six chaplains were present, Voorsanger, Tannenbaum,\nRichmond, Heller, Bettan and I, together with Mr. John Goldhaar of the\nJ. W. B. Our chief object was to work out a program of cooeperation with\nthe J. W. B., our second, to discuss our personal methods for the\nbenefit of our own work. Voorsanger was chairman; we decided to form a\nJewish Chaplains' Association, which never developed afterward; and\nplanned to hold another meeting soon, which owing to military\nexigencies, we never did. But we did adopt a program of cooeperation with\nthe J. W. B., which indicates the mutual dependency and the closeness of\ncontact which were almost uniformly the case. Our program provided that\nthe J. W. B. should submit to the chaplain the weekly report of the area\nin which he was stationed and should have relations with the military\nauthorities through him. The chaplain, on the other hand, was to make\nsuggestions to the worker in his area, and in exceptional cases to the\nParis office and was to be in complete charge of all Jewish religious\nwork in his area, although religious workers were personally responsible\nto their superior in the J. W. B. Finally, provision was made for\nfrequent conferences between the chaplain and the J. W. B. worker in the\nsame organization. This program was approved, not only nominally but\nalso in spirit by all the Jewish chaplains and welfare workers\nthroughout the A. E. F. I know that in Le Mans our contact was so close\nthat Mr. Rivitz instructed his religious workers to report directly to\nme for assignment of services and other division of labor, and I\nincluded their work with mine in my weekly reports to my senior\nchaplain.\n\nOn my final visit to Paris at the end of April I found a host of Jewish\ncelebrities gathered together in the interests of the Jewish Welfare\nBoard, the Joint Distribution Committee for the relief of Jews in\nEastern Europe, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish\nCongress. At the office of the J. W. B., I had a farewell conference\nwith Rabbi Voorsanger and Colonel Harry Cutler, giving them a summary of\nthe latest situation in my area. Colonel Cutler was busy as chairman of\nthe J. W. B., one of the American Jewish Congress delegates to the Peace\nConference, and a member of the Joint Distribution Committee. I met my\nold friend, Rabbi Isaac Landman, who was reporting the Peace Conference\nfor his paper, the American Hebrew, and he introduced me in turn to Miss\nHarriet Lowenstein, at that time the Paris purchasing agent of the\nJoint Distribution Committee, especially in the important work of buying\nsupplies originally sent to Europe for the use of the American forces. I\nencountered also three of the active workers of American Jewry, sent to\nrepresent us before the Peace Conference in such matters as might\nconcern the Jews; Judge Julian Mack, representing the American Jewish\nCongress; Dr. Cyrus Adler, for the American Jewish Committee; and Mr.\nLouis Marshall, a representative of both organizations. The two last\nwere also active in the Jewish Welfare Board, and Dr. Adler,\nvice-chairman of the Board, took charge as the representative of the\nBoard after Colonel Cutler's departure for the States. Even on the ship\ngoing home I met two Jewish workers, Rabbi B. Levinthal of the American\nJewish Congress delegation and Mr. Morris Engelman, returning from his\nwork in Holland for the Joint Distribution Committee. By that time world\nJewry was fully aroused and its delegates were busy, both at the seat of\nthe Peace Conference and in the lands of eastern Europe, where Jewish\nsuffering was becoming daily more intense.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE JEWISH WELFARE BOARD IN THE A. E. F.\n\n\nThe Jewish Welfare Board in the United States Army and Navy was the\ngreat authorized welfare agency to represent the Jews of America, as the\nYoung Men's Christian Association represented the Protestants and the\nKnights of Columbus the Catholics. It was organized on April 9, 1917,\njust three days after the declaration of war, and was acknowledged by\nthe Department of War as the official welfare body of the Jews in\nSeptember, 1917. It was not so much a new organization as a new activity\nof a number of the leading Jewish organizations of the United States:\nthe United Synagogue of America, the Union of American Hebrew\nCongregations, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Union of\nOrthodox Jewish Congregations, the Agudath ha-Rabbonim, the Jewish\nPublication Society of America, the council of Y. M. H. and Kindred\nAssociations, the Council of Jewish Women, the Independent Order B'nai\nB'rith, the Jewish Chautauqua Society, the Order Brith Abraham, the\nNational Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, the New York Board of Jewish\nMinisters, the Independent Order Brith Sholom, the Independent Order\nBrith Abraham, and the Women's League of the United Synagogue. In the\ncamps and cantonments at home it did a large and important piece of\nwork, establishing 490 representatives at 200 different posts and\nputting up 48 buildings for its work at various important points. This\ngreat field, however, is outside the scope of the present study, which\ncan take up only the overseas activities of the J. W. B.\n\nOne home organization must be mentioned in this place, the Chaplains'\nCommittee which made recommendations to the War Department for the\nappointment of Jewish chaplains. This was composed of representatives of\nthe leading religious bodies of the country: for the Central Conference\nof American Rabbis, Dr. William Rosenau and Dr. Louis Grossman; the\nUnited Synagogue of America, Dr. Elias L. Solomon; Eastern Council of\nReform Rabbis, Dr. Maurice H. Harris; the New York Board of Jewish\nMinisters, Dr. David de Sola Pool; the Union of Orthodox Jewish\nCongregations, Dr. Bernard Drachman; the Agudath ha-Rabbonim, Rabbi M.\nS. Margolies. Dr. Cyrus Adler, the Acting President of the Jewish\nTheological Seminary of America, was chairman of this committee. They\nhad the task of reviewing the applications of one hundred and forty-nine\nrabbis, of whom thirty-four were recommended to the War Department and\ntwenty-five were commissioned by the time the armistice put an end to\nmore appointments. I have already given in some detail the story of the\ntwelve of us who served in the A. E. F., while the other thirteen did\ntheir service in cantonments in the United States.\n\nThe Jewish Welfare Board began to take up the overseas problem as early\nas August, 1917, when Rabbi Voorsanger, then Sergeant in the Army\nMedical Corps, received a letter from Colonel Harry Cutler, asking for\nsuch information as he had at command and also how far he might be able\nto cooperate personally with the Jewish work. Some months later, after\nVoorsanger had been appointed chaplain he was again asked for\ninformation. This time he was in a position to give a great deal\ntogether with recommendations. A certain amount of supplies was\nfurnished him at once, but no welfare workers were sent until the\noverseas commission had made its investigation and report.\n\nThe overseas commission of the Jewish Welfare Board, consisting of\nCongressman Isaac N. Siegel, chairman, Rabbi H. G. Enelow, Rabbi Jacob\nKohn, and Mr. John Goldhaar, secretary, went to France in July, 1918,\nand were the first friends I met when I reached Paris. Their general\nwork was to study the nature and scope of the overseas field so as to\nmake recommendations on their return; incidentally to this, they were to\nestablish contact with kindred organizations and with the army, open\nheadquarters, and cooperate with the chaplains in the field in the\nholyday services. They made their surveys during the summer by constant\ntraveling and numerous interviews with officers and welfare workers as\nwell as with Jews in the service. Congressman Siegel made a trip to\nGeneral Pershing's headquarters and to the sector then occupied by the\n77th Division, where Chaplain Voorsanger was taken into consultation\nregarding the problems ahead. The Congressman then returned to America,\nwhile Mr. Goldhaar was left as executive secretary pro tem of the Paris\noffice and Rabbis Kohn and Enelow conducted holyday services at\ndifferent points. Afterward Dr. Kohn also returned home, and Dr. Enelow\ndevoted himself to field work, establishing welfare centers at various\npoints. Later on, when the army educational program was undertaken, he\nbecame the J. W. B. representative on the faculty of the Army University\nat Beaune. Dr. Enelow was recommended for a chaplaincy by the J. W. B.\nChaplains' Committee, but was among those prevented by the armistice\nfrom receiving the rank. Meanwhile he labored in any capacity at hand,\nfor he was determined not to return to America while work remained to be\ndone among the soldiers in France.\n\nAll this was entirely inadequate for the task at hand, as we all\nrealized at the time. At that time the J. W. B. was functioning in the\noverseas forces, not as a separate entity, but through the Y. M. C. A.\nThis naturally prevented the full expansion of its independent viewpoint\nor the direct contact with the army officials which alone could give it\nstanding. The arrival of the overseas commission made some difference in\nthis respect, but the J. W. B. was not fully recognized as one of the\nresponsible overseas welfare organizations until Colonel Harry Cutler,\nits national chairman, had come to France and presented his case at\nGeneral Pershing's headquarters. There were more than the usual\ndifficulties with passports and vises, owing to the German or Austrian\nancestry of some of the most desirable workers; this was finally\novercome by the chairman of the Board vouching personally for the\nloyalty of every individual recommended. The selection was limited, as\nwith all welfare organizations, to men not subject to draft. With these\nobstacles the difficulties proved for the time insuperable.\n\nThis situation made it impossible for the J. W. B. to undertake any\nindependent work before the armistice. It could only support and assist\nthe work already being done by chaplains and by the dozens of ready\nvolunteers among the officers and enlisted men themselves. The early\nhistory of Jewish welfare work abroad is that of a scattered band of\neager, self-sacrificing workers who gave up their own time to labor\nincessantly for the welfare of the Jewish men in the service. The first\ntask was to acquaint the soldiers with the fact that there was a Jewish\nWelfare Board, even though its Paris staff consisted only of Mr.\nGoldhaar, one stenographer and one office boy. Advertisements in the\n_Stars and Stripes_ and the Paris editions of American newspapers and\ncorrespondence with Jewish and non-Jewish chaplains, American, French\nand British, did the work. Letters began to pour in for supplies,\nadvice, information, and a great correspondence school of welfare work\nbegan.\n\nThe center of this work was naturally the Paris club rooms, in\nconnection with the office at 41 Boulevarde Haussman. Mr. John Goldhaar\nwas in immediate charge of both, with a mountain of mail on his desk\nfrom every part of the A. E. F. and a constant crowd of doughboys\noutside in the club rooms. His indefatigable labors and his profound\nsympathy for the boys in the service won him thousands of friends\nthrough the length and breadth of the forces. He continued in this\nposition, with its constantly growing duties, until Captain Voorsanger\nwas appointed Overseas Director of the J. W. B., when Mr. Goldhaar was\nmade Overseas Field Director and put in charge of the field work. His\nMedaille d'Honneur from the French government was earned by the hardest\nand most valuable kind of war work. Mr. Goldhaar gathered about him in\nthe Paris club rooms a group of American Jewesses and a few of their\nFrench coreligionists as an entertainment committee to make the boys\nfeel at home. Every afternoon they served tea--a little thing in itself,\nbut a big one to lonesome boys without a friend nearby. It meant much\neffort, too, on the part of the ladies themselves, especially their\nleaders, Mrs. Ralph Stern, Mrs. Zacharie Eudlitz, Mrs. Engelman and Mrs.\nHertz. Some of them came from the suburbs every afternoon, rain or\nshine, to render this devoted service. Monsieur and Madame Henri\nBodenheimer opened their hearts and their homes, both in Paris and\nTours, to receive the Americans; every Friday evening saw their table\ncrowded with lonesome \"buck\" privates, especially the ones whom other\npeople would overlook. With the assistance of these same people hospital\nvisitation was begun. A registration book in the office began to fill up\nwith the names of Jewish soldiers and officers, and letters sent home\nrecorded the fact of their visits and often established an important\nconnection for the welfare of the men themselves.\n\nAt the same time, among the hundreds of letter-writers and visitors\neager to do something, anything, for their fellow-soldiers, a few began\nto stand out here and there as effective and central workers. The\nsoldiers were always ready to cooperate; I found that out from my first\nservice at Nevers to my last at Le Mans. So it was only natural that far\nmore of them volunteered for this work than I can possibly mention. I\nshall simply have to speak of a few outstanding names, and leave it to\nthe imagination of the reader to multiply these examples many times. In\nChaumont there was Field Clerk A. S. Weisberger, formerly of Scranton,\nPa. \"Sandy\" Weisberger mimeographed a little newspaper, the \"Junior\nArgus,\" for his fellow-soldiers from Scranton; organized the Jewish\nsoldiers at G. H. Q. for services and sociability; and referred any\nnumber of men to the Jewish Welfare Board for such advice or assistance\nas it could give. He was later mustered out of service to become a J. W.\nB. worker and met his death most tragically by an accident in the Paris\nheadquarters, during the festivities of Passover week, 1919.\n\nIn Dijon there was a group, Major Jacob Jablons, Medical Corps; Miss\nBessie Spanner, a regular army nurse; and Sergeant J. Howard\nLichtenstein, of Baker Co. 339. They organized hospital visiting in the\nmany hospital centers in that area, celebration of the high holydays,\nSimchath Torah parties, and group gatherings of all kinds. This work was\nspontaneous and needed only supplies of stationery, prayerbooks and the\nlike to make it completely effective, furnishing a fertile field for the\nwelfare workers when they opened their community center there. By that\ntime the two last were also in the service of the Welfare Board, Miss\nSpanner in the unique position of head of the women workers overseas. In\nTours the outstanding figure was Colonel Max B. Wainer, at that time a\nMajor. He gathered a group of active workers among the soldiers, used\nthe local synagogue as a center, and organized a full welfare program,\nincluding Friday evening services and round table discussions, hospital\nvisiting, and distribution of stationery and prayerbooks. I dropped in\nat Tours for a day to arrange for the holyday services; the local\ncommittee of soldiers saw that special meals were provided for the\nJewish men; and the bills were paid by the Jewish Welfare Board.\n\nIn the Le Mans area, which before the armistice was used as a\nclassification camp from which soldiers were sent as replacements to\nunits in the field, the first Jewish work was started by Sergeant\nCharles S. Rivitz of Army Post Office 762 through the aid and assistance\nof his commanding officer, Lieutenant Willing of Cleveland. Lieutenant\n(later Captain) Willing, though a non-Jew, had taken a deep interest in\nthe Jewish men in his unit while still in camp in the States and\ncontinued this interest to France. With the approval of Gen. Glenn, in\ncommand of the area, Rivitz was detailed to the Jewish Welfare Board\nunder the supervision of the senior chaplain of the area and Capt.\nWilling. Sergeant Rivitz was not a social worker at all, but had one\nsource of strength which made his good will effective. He was a soldier,\nhad attained his sergeancy through force of personality; he knew what\nthe soldiers wanted and insisted on giving it to them. He rented a\nchateau as a club house largely on his own responsibility, and the\nJewish Welfare Board soon found that both the structure and his method\nof conducting it were excellent. His chief assistant was Corporal George\nRooby, who after his discharge from the service volunteered for the\nfirst unit of the Joint Distribution Committee in Poland, and continued\nserving Jewry there.\n\nIn fighting units also the Jewish officers and enlisted men were early\nactive in welfare work. Two officers occur to me whose work I saw\npersonally; undoubtedly there were many others with the same sort of\ninterest. Captain Leon Schwartz of the 123rd Infantry, 31st Division,\nwas active from the outset in his own division and the Le Mans area.\nLater, during the time when the army was trying every means to keep up\nthe morale of the troops, and the temporary organization of \"Comrades in\nService\" was being pushed through the G. H. Q. Chaplains' Office,\nCaptain Schwartz was assigned to this work as the Jewish representative,\nand addressed hundreds of gatherings of soldiers, together with the\nCatholic and Protestant spokesmen for morale and comradeship. In the\n26th Division, the \"Yankee Division,\" Captain Bernard I. Gorfinkle of\nthe Judge Advocate's office was one of the first and most effective\nJewish workers in France. Captain Gorfinkle organized an overseas branch\nof the New England Y. M. H. A., deriving his first funds from the Young\nMen's Hebrew Associations of New England. Later, when the Jewish Welfare\nBoard arrived, he joined forces with its Paris office for the benefit of\nhis men. Mr. Goldhaar tells how surprised he was after the battle of\nChateau Thierry to be highly complimented for the work of the J. W. B.\nin marking the Jewish graves. Of course, at that time no such work had\nyet been undertaken. On investigation he found that the graves of Jews\nof the 26th Division who fell in action had been marked with a crude\nMagen David by their comrades under the initiative of Captain Gorfinkle.\n\nWherever a Jewish chaplain existed the Welfare Board had a means of\ncontact with the men. And here and there throughout the A. E. F.,\nvolunteers sprang up, establishing their little groups and doing their\nown work, large or small. In the 42nd Division, to cite only one more\nexample, some of the boys came together and held holyday services during\nthe actual campaign, and afterward instituted their own hospital\nvisiting. But then came the armistice, and at the same time the passport\ndifficulty was disposed of. Workers began to come; new plans were being\nissued daily by the army authorities; the whole viewpoint of the work\nwas revolutionized and the facilities suddenly enlarged.\n\nThe determining factor was that troops were no longer being scattered\nfor training and fighting but concentrated for their return home. Hence\nthe J. W. B. centered its work on the American Embarkation Center and\nthe base ports, established a line of centers in the chief points of the\nService of Supply, and went with the Army of Occupation to Germany. The\nlast to be supplied with workers were some of the combat divisions not\nin the organized areas. Thus the work grew. The club-house at Le Mans\nwas dedicated on November 28, 1918, in the presence of Major General\nGlenn, with speeches by Dr. Enelow and the prefect of the Department of\nthe Sarthe, and a vaudeville show and refreshments to wind up the\nevening. Buildings were rented in the ports of Brest, St. Nazaire,\nBordeaux and Marseilles, and a line of centers established across\nFrance, from Le Mans on through Tours, St. Aignan, Gievres, Bourges,\nBeaune, Is-sur-Tille, Dijon and Chaumont. The headquarters for the Army\nof Occupation were at Coblenz, where the B'nai B'rith Building was\nemployed and seven huts established through the area. Finally as workers\ncontinued coming, they were assigned to seven of the combat divisions,\nstaying with them in their movements through France and saying farewell\nonly after the troops were embarked for home. These divisions were the\n5th, 6th, 7th, 29th, 33rd, 79th, and 81st. When Antwerp became an\nimportant port for army supplies a center was established there as well.\n\nAltogether the Jewish Welfare Board employed 102 men and 76 women in 57\ndifferent centers in the American Expeditionary Forces. Of this\npersonnel, 24 men and one woman, Miss Spanner, were mustered out of the\nservice for this purpose, while the others were transported from the\nStates. Of the buildings, 23 were located in towns and were rented; the\nother 34 were provided by cooeperation of other organizations, 28 by the\nU. S. Army, two by the Knights of Columbus, two by the Red Cross, one by\nthe Y. M. C. A. and one by the Belgian Government. In camps rough\nbarracks or tents were usually the thing; in cities the equipment\nvaried, and in some places was complete with kitchen, dance hall,\nwriting room, and offices.\n\nI can speak of the large work in the Le Mans area through personal\nacquaintance. There the personality of Mr. Rivitz was the decisive\nfactor. With his unerring knowledge of the soldier, he established at\nonce the policy of everything free, which was soon adopted by the J. W.\nB. throughout its overseas work. Religious services were provided, hot\nchocolate and cigarettes served, contact established with thousands of\nsoldiers for the personal needs which they brought to the welfare\nworker. As the needs of the area grew, other centers were established.\nWhen the 77th Division, with its thousands of Jews, was in the area,\nfive huts were established in its various regiments and the men provided\nwith everything possible right at home. In other units where the Jews\nwere more scattered, the centers were at the Division Headquarters. In\ncases where units stopped in our area for only a few days or a week, an\nautomobile load of supplies with two workers was sent out on an\nextensive trip, meeting the boys and giving them as much personal cheer\nand physical sustenance as possible under the circumstances.\n\nI have described this type of activity several times in connection with\nmy own personal story. Here and there, however, special personalities or\nincidents stand out in the constant, exhausting labor to which the\nworkers subjected themselves in the terrific rush of the morale agencies\nduring that period of waiting to go home. In Germany at the head of the\nwork was Mr. Leo Mielziner, son of the late Professor Moses Mielziner of\nthe Hebrew Union College, a man of high reputation as an artist and of\ncommanding personality. Mr. Mielziner, who had two sons in the service,\nconducted the work in the Army of Occupation with the finest spirit of\nfellow-feeling for the enlisted man. Under his direction the Jewish\nWelfare Board maintained such a high standard that when the Red Cross\nclosed its railroad canteens in the occupied territory the J. W. B. was\nrequested by the army to take them over.\n\nAt Gievres, where the great bakeries of the A. E. F. were located, the\nJ. W. B. was the center for the bakery units. So when Purim came both\nJews and non-Jews cooperated in baking a gigantic cake for the\ncelebration. The cake, which had to be baked in sections, occupied not\nonly the stage but also an addition made for the purpose. It was cut\ninto 10,000 portions and every man in that camp received a slice. As\nthe crowning achievement of the A. E. F. bakeries, that Purim cake\nreceived a reputation of its own.\n\nThe Paris office, and still later the club rooms on Rue Clement Marot,\nwere the entertainment center for the Paris district and all its many\nvisitors. After its formal opening on Simchath Torah, every Sunday\nafternoon an entertainment was provided, with vaudeville, speeches or\ndancing, concluding with the famous chocolate layer cake made by\nvolunteer workers among the American women living in Paris. The wounded\nwere visited in the nearby hospitals and usually a group of\nconvalescents was present in the front seats at the entertainment. The\nregistrations in the big book served to unite many friends and brothers\nwho had lost track of each other in the constantly moving wilderness of\nthe A. E. F. A family wrote in from Kansas City that their son was\ncomplaining at not hearing from home; when the J. W. B. wrote him, it\nwas his first news from home in his six months as a \"casual\" in France.\nThrough the Paris office and the workers in the field the whole immense\nfield of personal service and entertainment had to be covered, including\nmuch of the same work which was being done by the chaplains and in\naddition the furnishing of immense amounts of supplies which we and\nothers could use up but could not provide.\n\nDuring the high holydays the Paris clubrooms presented a remarkable\nmingling of Jewish soldiers of all the allied armies. Mixed with the\nolive drab and the navy blue of the United States were the Australians\nwith their hats rakishly turned up on the side, the gray capes of the\nItalian, the French troops from Morocco, the Russian in Cossack\nuniform, and a few Belgians. During Chanuka, which coincided with\nThanksgiving in 1918, special services were held at the synagogue in the\nRue de la Victoire, the largest in France. The synagogue was crowded\nwith French men and women, all at a high pitch of enthusiasm, and with\n350 American soldiers, the heroes of the occasion. The impressive\nservice of the French rabbi was followed by a brilliant Thanksgiving\nsermon by Chaplain Voorsanger, who had been invited to come to Paris for\nthe occasion. After services turkey and pumpkin pie were served at the\nclub rooms, and while I was not there that day, I can testify that the\npumpkin pie served at the Jewish Welfare Board on New Year's day, 1919,\nwas one of the most poignant reminders of the United States during my\nstay abroad.\n\nDue to the intense pressure of the situation, the actual volume of work\ndone by the J. W. B. was surprisingly large. The entertainments and\ndances conducted at every center numbered fully 5,000, with an aggregate\nattendance of 2,750,000. Among the conspicuous units which toured the A.\nE. F. under Welfare Board auspices, was \"Who Can Tell?\" the Second Army\nshow, which was underwritten by request of the Welfare Officer and was\none of the most elaborate of the army musical comedies, with a full\ncomplement of chorus girls acted by husky doughboys; this production\ntoured for five weeks and while in Paris was seen by President and Mrs.\nWilson. There was the \"Dovetail Troupe,\" a vaudeville unit which\nlikewise went on tour. And there was the \"Tuneful Trio,\" led by Mr. and\nMrs. Henry Gideon of Boston, which came to France under the Y. M. C.\nA., and gave many excellent concerts under J. W. B. auspices; I heard\none of their programs in Le Mans and felt not only the musical\nexcellence of their work, but also the special appeal of their program\nof Yiddish folk songs to the Jewish men; this troupe delivered 81\nconcerts to fully 60,000 men. The army educational work received much\nsupport in the various huts, and two of the best equipped men in the J.\nW. B. service were assigned to it, Dr. H. G. Enelow for the University\nof Beaune, and Professor David Blondheim of Johns Hopkins, for a time\nexecutive director of the overseas work, for the Sorbonne in Paris. The\nbulk of the daily work in the huts throughout France appears from the\nfact that 2,500,000 letterheads were distributed and refreshments served\nwithout charge to a total of 3,000,000 men.\n\nThe records of religious work are equally imposing, as 1,740 services\nwere held, with a total attendance of 180,000 men. The constant\ncooeperation with the chaplains meant that far more than these were\nindirectly influenced and aided. Eighteen thousand prayer books were\ndistributed and ten thousand Bibles. On Passover of 1919 the J. W. B.\nprovided unleavened bread (matzoth), which had been furnished through\nthe Quartermaster Corps, for the Jewish soldiers in the American forces,\nas well as for French and Russian soldiers. The J. W. B. even provided\nmatzoth for six thousand Russian prisoners in Germany during Passover of\n1919. At the request of the military officials, the Jewish Welfare Board\ntook charge of welfare work for the sixty thousand Russian troops in\nFrance, who had come originally as fighting units, but after the\nwithdrawal of Russia from the war had been transferred to agricultural\nlabor. No other welfare agency had provided for them and so they were\nassigned to the J. W. B. which had a few workers who could speak\nRussian. It was rather ironical that these men in Cossack uniform, most\nof whom were non-Jews, received their only friendly service in France at\nthe hands of the despised Jew.\n\nThe whole work of the J. W. B. abroad culminated in the Passover of\n1919. The most intense moment for us chaplains had come during the high\nholydays when feeling was most profound and suspense at its deepest and\nwhen, in addition, we had to carry the burden almost unaided. By\nPassover the feeling had changed, the war was safely over, the men were\nrejoicing at their imminent return home, and we had the Jewish Welfare\nBoard to arrange our celebration for us. Fully 30,000 of the Jews in the\nA. E. F. ate the Seder dinners furnished by the Welfare Board. I have\nalready described our celebration at Le Mans, with its many features in\nwhich the J. W. B. and I worked together. A similar program was carried\nout everywhere. At Dijon Rabbi Schumacher of the local French synagogue,\nwho had been most active throughout in the interest of the American\nsoldiers, led a great congregation of 2,000 men through the rain to the\nsynagogue for worship and afterward to the Seder tables. In Germany, the\ncity of Coblenz became the leave area for soldiers of Jewish faith and\nwas closed for all other furloughs during the three days. The Y. M. C.\nA. and the K. of C. assisted in giving proper honor to the Jewish\nfestival and proper pleasures to the Jewish men, and with their aid\nboat rides on the Rhine, entertainments in the Festhalle, and all the\nfeatures of a full amusement program were provided.\n\nMost striking of all was the great Seder at Paris, with its crowd of\nAmerican, Australian, English, French and Italian soldiers, some of them\nformer prisoners in Germany, all of them united in the great occasion of\ntheir faith. Among the speakers and the guests of honor were some of the\ngreat leaders of Jewry, as well as personal representatives of Marshall\nFoch and General Pershing. Colonel Harry Cutler, Mr. Louis Marshall,\nJudge Julian Mack, Dr. Cyrus Adler, and Dr. Chaim Weitzmann were there,\nas well as many other celebrities. At that time and in that place the\nhighest honor for any man was to worship and eat side by side with the\nsoldiers, who had carried love of their country and loyalty to their\nfaith to the last extreme of service and of sacrifice.\n\nDecoration Day of 1919, which was observed by all France together with\nits American visitors, was another important ceremony for the Jewish\nWelfare Board, together with its French hosts at the great synagogue on\nthe Rue de la Victoire. The sermon was delivered by Rabbi Voorsanger,\nthe service read by Rabbi Levy of Paris; and again the great throng of\nAmericans in uniform and their French friends joined in the common\nworship of their faith and the common exaltation of their patriotism.\n\nIn addition to the overseas commission and the men in the field, several\nof the prominent officers of the Jewish Welfare Board went to France at\nvarious times and took personal part in the work. The first was Mr.\nMortimer L. Schiff, who spent the months of December 1918 and January\n1919 in France as a member of the commission of eleven of the United War\nWork Organization, which had just completed its great financial drive.\nIn that capacity Mr. Schiff was equally interested in all the welfare\nagencies; naturally, he gave the full benefit of his advice to the J. W.\nB. In February 1919 Colonel Harry Cutler, chairman of the Jewish Welfare\nBoard, came to France. Although burdened with duties for other\norganizations as well, he accomplished wonders for the work of the J. W.\nB. during his four months in France. His enthusiasm and vigor showed at\nonce, as in any matter he ever undertook. He traveled throughout the A.\nE. F., observed conditions for himself, and then accomplished two\nimportant pieces of work. First he obtained an order from the General\nHeadquarters releasing the J. W. B. from its former dependence on the Y.\nM. C. A. and allowing it to work directly in cooeperation with the\nmilitary authorities; this was certainly advisable under post-armistice\nconditions, and many others felt with me that it would have been the\npreferable system at all times. Second, he persuaded Chaplain Elkan C.\nVoorsanger, then completing his second year overseas, to allow his\ndivision to return home without him, while he stayed on from April to\nSeptember as Overseas Director of the J. W. B. Together with Chaplain\nVoorsanger, Colonel Cutler administered the J. W. B. during the period\nof growth, and then left him to carry it on successfully during the time\nof retrenchment, until finally he also returned home with the Paris\nStaff, and the only representatives left in France were those working in\ncooeperation with the Graves Registration Service.\n\nAnother important worker for the J. W. B. was Dr. Cyrus Adler,\nvice-chairman of the national organization, who reached France in March,\n1919 as a representative of the American Jewish Committee. On Colonel\nCutler's return in May, Dr. Adler took over his duties for the Welfare\nBoard, and worked with Chaplain Voorsanger until the end of his mission,\nin July 1919.\n\nOne necessary part of the work of the Jewish Welfare Board, after all\nits efforts on behalf of the men in the service had been accomplished,\nwas to care for the graves of those Jews who gave their all in the\nservice of America. The Graves Registration Service, later called the\nCemeterial Division of the War Department, had a great and necessary\nwork. The Jewish Welfare Board obtained in February, 1918 a War\nDepartment order that all graves of Jews should be marked with the Magen\nDavid, the double triangle.\n\nThis order was confirmed by a response from General Pershing on July 29,\n1918. Temporary Jewish headboards were supplied overseas, together with\nthe temporary crosses, and whenever we knew definitely that a particular\nsoldier had been a Jew they were used. Unfortunately, that information\nwas not always available. Most units had no religious census, certainly\nnone was up to date including the replacements. The order for marking\nthe identification tag with an additional letter--\"P\" for Protestant,\n\"C\" for Catholic, and \"H\" for Hebrew--was issued after most of us were\noverseas, and hardly any of the tags had it; I know I never had the \"H\"\nput on mine. Often a man would carry a prayerbook in his pocket, but if\nthe bodies were searched by one detail and buried by another that did\nnot help. I know that it took me three months to verify my list of\nJewish dead in the 27th Division, so that one can imagine the task for\nthe entire A. E. F.\n\nIn May, 1919, the J. W. B. undertook this duty of identifying the Jewish\ngraves, so that the War Department could mark them all properly. They\nhave thus identified 1,500 altogether and where a cross had already been\nput up the headboard was changed. In this connection, a peculiar\nsituation arose through the efforts of the Red Cross to photograph all\ngraves in France for the benefit of the families at home. Such graves as\nhad not been identified as Jewish still had the cross, and some families\nhad their religious sensibilities shocked by the photographs. Hence the\nphotographs in all such cases were detained until the changes had been\ncarried out, and the Jewish Welfare Board had the graves photographed\nfor the benefit of the families. Naturally, this work is being continued\nin the funerals of such soldiers as are being returned and in the care\nof such graves as shall remain permanently where our heroes fought and\nfell.\n\nThe sad death of Colonel Cutler occurred in England during the summer of\n1920, on a trip which he undertook in the interest of the Graves\nRegistration work, against the advice of his physicians and solely\nthrough his profound interest in the cause. His life was a sacrifice to\nhis duty, to the tremendous efforts he had made for the Jewish Welfare\nBoard and the other great national movements of Jewry. He gave, as so\nmany others gave, another sacrifice for Judaism and America.\n\nOn the whole, the field workers of the Jewish Welfare Board made an\nenviable record in France. In this respect a minor organization had the\nadvantage in being able to choose its representatives so much more\ncarefully than in the enormous machine of the Y. M. C. A. The women\nworkers were especially conspicuous for their steady, uncomplaining\nservice. Their work was anything but romantic; it was driving, wearing\nlabor. They tended canteen all day and danced almost every evening, a\nregime that was hard physically and exhausting mentally. Only those in\nthe larger cities could enjoy the luxuries which are so commonplace in\nAmerica--electric lights, a bath tub, and the other conveniences of\ncivilization. I have marveled to see them living for months in tiny\nFrench villages or in army camps, giving devoted service to the men in\nuniform, without distinction of rank or creed.\n\nThrough these workers the Jewish Welfare Board was able to render the\npersonal touch which was missing in much of the war work overseas. This\napplied especially to the Jewish man, who felt overjoyed to meet a\nJewish girl from America, to attend a Seder, to write home on the J. W.\nB. letterhead. He had found a touch of home in a foreign land; his\npersonal needs could be understood and satisfied so much more easily and\ndirectly now. But many men of many creeds found themselves at home in\nthe J. W. B. huts. Men learned to know Jews, to respect Judaism in the\narmy who had been ignorant of both at home. They often attended a Jewish\nservice, met a Jewish chaplain, or simply preferred the home-like\natmosphere to that of other welfare organizations. For one thing, the J.\nW. B. was run according to the tastes of the soldiers; there was no\ncharge for anything, even a nominal one; there was no condescension and\nno dictation, none of the things which the soldiers hated. In the Le\nMans area, which was typical, from 56 to 60 per cent of the men\npatronizing the J. W. B. building were non-Jews. This constituted a\nreturn for the thousands of Jews who patronized Y. M. C. A. and K. of C.\nhuts, as well as our contribution to the morale of the forces.\n\nIn some areas the Jewish Welfare Board was the most popular of all the\nwelfare agencies; in all, it was very popular with the men of all\nfaiths. The high caliber of the women workers, the personal touch and\nhome-like spirit of the work, gave it a hold on the affections of the\nmen. For a long time the Jewish soldiers had felt neglected by their\nown, not knowing the obstacles which had to be overcome. Then they found\ntheir own huts, suddenly springing up in all the central points, crowded\nand popular with all the groups of soldiers in America's composite army.\nThe Jewish soldier became proud and the Christian soldier became\nappreciative. The excellence of the work brought forgiveness for\neverything, even though the soldier was not used to listening to reasons\nbut formed his opinions quickly from the facts nearest at hand. The\ncontribution through happiness and unity to the morale of the American\nExpeditionary Forces was one that did full justice to the eagerness and\ngood will of the Jews of America.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE JEW AS A SOLDIER\n\n\nThe Jewish soldier demands no defense and needs no tribute. His deeds\nare written large in the history of every unit in the A. E. F.; they are\npreserved in the memory of his comrades of other races and other faiths.\nHe was one with all American soldiers, for in the service men of every\ntype and of every previous standpoint were much alike, under the same\norders, holding the same ideals, with similar responses and similar\naccomplishments. The Jew was an American soldier--that really covers the\nstory. For historical purposes, however, a further statement of numbers,\nhonors, personalities, may be worth while. The Jew was in the American\narmy, as in all the allied armies, because he exists among the\npopulation of every land. The studies made in various lands show that\nover 900,000 Jews fought in the World War altogether, of whom over\n80,000 were killed in action or died of wounds. In the British forces\ncasualties included the names of 8,600 Jews, and in the French forces,\nout of less than a hundred thousand Jewish population in the nation,\n2,200 were killed in the service. These figures, picked practically at\nrandom from enormous masses of similar material, tend to show the\nparticipation of Jews in every army, just as they participate everywhere\nin the national life.\n\nIn the American forces the Jewish soldier ranked with the best; he was\nan American soldier, and there is no higher praise than that. With all\nthe panegyrics on the American doughboy during and since the war, not\nenough has been said or can ever be said about him. His good humor, his\nself sacrifice, his heroism, won the affection and the admiration of\nevery one. His officers loved him; his enemies respected him; his allies\nregarded him with mingled enthusiasm and patronage. They loved his\nyouthful dash and were amused at his youthful unsophistication; at the\nsame time they were profoundly grateful for his forgetfulness of self\nwhen the time for action came. I have mentioned some of the incidents in\nmy own experience, illustrating the magnificent courage and abandon of\nAmericans at the front--the youngster who came to the aid post seriously\ngassed but proud that he had stayed on duty the longest of any man in\nhis company; the weary boys on the brow of a hill, digging in for the\nfourth time in a day of advances and fighting; the little Italian who\nstood on the edge of the shell hole that his comrades might advance--but\nthe number and the variety of them was endless. Reading a list of the\ndry, official citations for decorations is like opening a mediaeval\nromance of the deeds of knightly heroes. There was Captain Ireland who\ncame to our aid post to have his wounds dressed and then started out\nwithout waiting for the ambulance. \"Where are you going, Captain?\" I\nasked. \"Oh, back to the boys,\" was the answer, \"I'm the only officer\nleft in the battalion, and I don't want to leave them.\" There was the\nchaplain's orderly, himself a student for the ministry, who voluntarily\norganized a stretcher party to bring in some wounded men out beyond the\nbarbed wire. Every type of heroism and self sacrifice existed, all\ncarried off with the good humored bravado of school boys at a football\ngame.\n\nAmong these heroes the Jewish soldiers were equal to the best, as their\ncomrades and commanders were quick to recognize. A typical attitude\ntoward them was that of a lieutenant colonel, telling me a story of his\nfirst battle, when we were on shipboard coming back home. \"I was rather\nnervous about that first time under fire,\" he told me, \"because I had a\nnumber of foreign boys in one company and didn't know how they might\nbehave. Among them was a little Jew who was medical man of the company,\ncarrying bandages instead of weapons, but going over the top with the\nothers, a restless fellow, always breaking orders and getting into\ntrouble of some kind or another. And when I came to that company on the\nfront line the first thing I saw was that little Jew jumping out of a\nshell hole and starting for the rear as fast as he could run. I pulled\nmy revolver, ready to shoot him rather than have an example of cowardice\nset for the rest. But I was surprised to see him turn aside suddenly and\njump into another shell hole, and when I went over there I found him\nhard at work bandaging up another wounded soldier. He was simply doing\nhis duty under fire, absolutely without sign of fear as he tended the\nboys who were hurt. I was sorry I had misjudged him so badly and watched\nhis work after that, with the result that I was later able to recommend\nhim for a decoration.\"\n\nIgnorance, suspicion, ripening with knowledge into understanding and\nadmiration--that was the usual course of events. I quote Colonel\nWhittlesey, commander of the famous \"Lost Battalion\" of the 308th\nInfantry, a New York unit with a very large proportion of Jews: \"As to\nthe Jewish boys in the Battalion, I cannot recall many of them by name,\nbut certain figures stand out simply because they are so unexpected. The\nordinary run of soldiers, whether Jews, Irish, or Americans--the big,\nhusky chaps who simply do what they are expected to do--naturally pass\nfrom our memory. It is the odd figures who stick in your mind. There was\none chap for example (Herschkovitz was his name) who seemed the worst\npossible material from which to make soldier-stuff. He was thick-set,\nstupid looking, extremely foreign, thoroughly East Side, and yet, one\nday when we were holding the bank of the Vesle, and it became necessary\nto send runners to communicate with our commands, Herschkovitz was the\n_only man_ who volunteered for the job. It was a nasty physical job. It\nwould have been a difficult thing if it had not been under fire, because\nit meant cutting through under-brush, up hill and down hill. Under fire\nthis became almost impossible, and the boys knew it, so none of them\ncared for the job, but Herschkovitz made the trip four times that day.\nWhat was it? Well, just plain pluck, that's all. There were a great many\nfellows of this type--East Siders of whom the regular army men expected\nnothing at all--but the 77th Division just seemed equal to anything....\"\n\nIn the same unit was Private Abraham Krotoshinsky, who was awarded the\nD. S. C. for bearing the message which informed the division of the\nexact location of the unit, and was instrumental in releasing them.\nKrotoshinsky was an immigrant boy, not yet a citizen, a barber by trade.\nHis own words give the story simply enough: \"We began to be afraid the\ndivision had forgotten us or that they had given us up for dead. We had\nto get a messenger through. It meant almost certain death, we were all\nsure, because over a hundred and fifty men had gone away and never come\nback. But it had to be done. The morning of the fifth day they called\nfor volunteers for courier. I volunteered and was accepted. I went\nbecause I thought I ought to. First of all I was lucky enough not to be\nwounded. Second, after five days of starving, I was stronger than many\nof my friends who were twice my size. You know a Jew finds strength to\nsuffer. Third, because I would just as soon die trying to help the\nothers as in the 'pocket' of hunger and thirst.\n\n\"I got my orders and started. I had to run about thirty feet in plain\nview of the Germans before I got into the forest. They saw me when I got\nup and fired everything they had at me. Then I had to crawl right\nthrough their lines. They were looking for me everywhere. I just moved\nalong on my stomach, in the direction I was told, keeping my eyes open\nfor them.... It was almost six o'clock that night when I saw the\nAmerican lines. All that day I had been crawling or running doubled up\nafter five days and nights without food and practically nothing to\ndrink. Then my real trouble began. I was coming from the direction of\nthe German lines and my English is none too good. I was afraid they\nwould shoot me for a German before I could explain who I was.... Then\nthe Captain asked me who I was. I told him I was from the Lost\nBattalion. Then he asked me whether I could lead him back to the\nbattalion. I said, 'Yes.' They gave me a bite to eat and something to\ndrink and after a little rest I started back again with the command. I\nwill never forget the scene when the relief came. The men were like\ncrazy with joy.\"\n\nIn high position and in low the same kind of service came from the\nAmerican Jew. This is the official citation of a Colonel, who is in\ncivil life one of the prominent Jews of Chicago, Illinois:\n\n\"Colonel Abel Davis, 132nd Infantry. For extraordinary heroism in action\nnear Consenvoye, France, October 9, 1918. Upon reaching its objective,\nafter a difficult advance, involving two changes of directions, Colonel\nDavis's regiment was subjected to a determined enemy counterattack.\nDisregarding the heavy shell and machine-gun fire, Colonel Davis\npersonally assumed command and by his fearless leadership and courage\nthe enemy was driven back.\"\n\nJudge Robert S. Marx of Cincinnati, Ohio, is now national president of\nthe Disabled Veterans of the World War and a member of the national\ncommittee on hospitalization and vocational education of the American\nLegion. But in 1917 and '18 he was Captain Marx of the 90th Division,\noperations officer of his regiment during the St. Mihiel and Argonne\noffensives, and reported dead on the day before the armistice, when he\nwas struck on the head and wounded severely. And on the other extreme, I\nnotice the case of First Sergeant Sam Dreben of the 141st Infantry, a\nsoldier of fortune in many revolutions and a member of the Regular Army\nin the Philippines several years ago. Discovering a party of Germans\ncoming to the support of a dangerous machine-gun nest, Sergeant Dreben\nwith thirty men charged the German position, killed forty of the enemy,\ntook several prisoners, and captured five machine guns, returning to his\nown lines without losing a man. For this daring and important act he was\nawarded the D. S. C.\n\nOf the various types of distinction emphasized during the war, all were\nas true of Jews as of any other group. Numerous cases exist where four\nor more members of a single family were in the service. There was the\nFleshner family, of Springfield, Mass., from which four sons of an\nimmigrant father and mother entered the service, the oldest of them only\ntwenty-three. The oldest of these boys lost an arm and an eye while\ncarrying ammunition through a barrage, but exclaimed later in the\nhospital: \"I'm the luckiest Jew in the army. Any other man in my place\nwould have been killed.\"\n\nThe New York Herald during the war described an indefatigable Red Cross\nworker, Mrs. Louis Rosenberg of North Bergen, N. J. This old Jewish\nmother had six sons in the service; the two oldest, each the father of\ntwo children, when summoned for the draft refused to claim exemption,\nand having invested their savings in two small notion stores, they left\ntheir wives in charge of them and accepted the call to military service.\nMrs. Liba Goldstein, of Cambridge Springs, Pa., a woman of eighty-four,\nborn in Russia, had twenty grandsons in the allied armies, ten as\nofficers in the British army, eight in the American forces, and two with\nthe Jewish Legion in Palestine. And so one might bring out one example\nafter another, if one desired, all showing the eagerness of loyal Jews\nto serve their country.\n\nThe Office of Jewish War Records of the American Jewish Committee has\nmade a remarkably interesting preliminary study of the number of Jews in\nthe American forces. The office possesses 150,000 individual records,\ngathered by extensive cooeperation with national and local Jewish\norganizations. The success of certain local efforts at intensive\ncovering of the field indicate that the total number of American Jews in\nservice during the War may amount to as much as 200,000. Of these about\n40,000 came from New York City, 8,000 from Philadelphia and 5,000 from\nChicago. Instead of their quota of three per cent., according to the\nproportion of Jews throughout the nation, the Jews in service actually\nconstituted fully four per cent. of the men in the army and navy. The\ncauses of this excess are not easy to establish. The draft may have been\nmore fully enforced in cities than in many rural districts, and the bulk\nof the Jews are city dwellers. The proportion of young men among the\nvarious groups of our population would apply only if the Jews have more\nthan their quota of young men, and we possess no facts to confirm that.\nBut certainly the number of volunteers was an element in causing this\nlarge number of Jews in the service. The records show 40,000 volunteers\namong the Jewish men, practically one-fourth of the total Jewish\ncontingent and a far higher record than that of the army as a whole.\n\nIn certain outstanding cases this record is even more conspicuous. The\nlittle colony of immigrant Jewish farmers at Woodbine, N. J., not over\nthree hundred families altogether, contributed forty-three men to the\nservice, of whom seventeen men, or forty per cent., were volunteers. Of\nthe students at the rabbinical seminaries, who were all exempt by law, a\nconspicuously large number volunteered for service in the line, in\naddition to the chaplains among the graduates and the large number of\nboth students and graduates who acted as representatives of the Jewish\nWelfare Board, lecturers in the training camps and similar capacities.\nIn fact, the seminaries were almost empty for a year. Eleven students of\nthe Hebrew Union College and four of the Jewish Theological Seminary\nwaived exemption for regular service in the army and navy, including a\nnumber of men with very exceptional records. Jacob Marcus, now Rabbi and\nInstructor at the Hebrew Union College, volunteered in the Ohio National\nGuard and won his lieutenancy by brilliant work in the ranks. Three of\nthe students there entered the Marine Corps during the first weeks of\nthe war and served for over two years in that branch. One, Michael\nAaronson, serving in the 31st Division overseas, was completely blinded\nwhile helping a wounded comrade in No Man's Land; now he is finishing\nhis studies at the College with the same spirit which he showed in\nentering the service and in his work as a soldier.\n\nThe Jewish boys went into the army to fight. That appears in their\nproportion in the combatant branches of the American Expeditionary\nForces. While these branches--Infantry, Artillery, Cavalry, Engineers,\nand Signal-Aviation--constituted 60 per cent. of the total, among the\n114,000 records of Jewish soldiers in the hands of the War Records\nOffice the distribution among these combatant branches is fully 75 per\ncent. The Infantry constituted 26.6 per cent. of the entire army, while\namong the Jewish records it constituted 48 per cent. Artillery was 14\nper cent. of the United States army, 8 per cent. of the Jewish total. In\ncavalry the rate for the entire army was 2 per cent., for the Jews only\n1.3 per cent. The engineer corps contributed 11 per cent. of the army\nstrength, and but 3 per cent. among the Jewish records. The signal and\naviation corps represented 7 per cent. of the United States total, and\n15 per cent. of the Jewish total. The medical corps was 8 per cent. of\nthe army total, 9 per cent. of the Jewish total. Ordnance was 1.7 per\ncent. of the army total, and 1.5 of the Jewish total. The quartermaster\ncorps was 6.2 per cent. of the army total and 5.9 per cent. of the\nJewish total.\n\nThe Army, Navy and Marine Corps altogether had nearly 10,000 Jews as\ncommissioned officers, and a really tremendous number of\nnon-commissioned officers. The Army records show more than a hundred\ncolonels and lieutenant colonels of Jewish faith, including such\ndistinguished officers as Colonel Abel Davis, whom I have already\nmentioned in connection with his D. S. C. for heroism displayed on\nOctober 9, 1918; Colonel Nathan Horowitz, of Boston, Mass. who spent 27\nmonths in France in the heavy artillery; Colonel Samuel Frankenberger,\nof Charleston, W. Va., who commanded the 78th Field Artillery; Colonel\nSamuel J. Kopetzky, Medical Corps, of New York City, who commanded\nSanitary Train 396, in the A. E. F.; and Colonel Max Robert Wainer,\nQuartermaster Corps, formerly of Delaware City, Del., who was awarded\nthe Distinguished Service Medal and appointed a Chevalier of the Legion\nof Honor by the French government. These honors were but the climax to\na military career that began with enlistment as a private in 1905, and\npromotion to the rank of Second Lieutenant in 1912. In the war every one\nof the four battles in which he took part was the occasion of a further\npromotion, so that he concluded the war as a Colonel. I have already\nmentioned Colonel Wainer in another connection, as the first active\nJewish worker at Tours; as a matter of fact, he organized a Seder in his\nown unit in 1918, where 500 men celebrated the Passover at the same time\nthat Chaplain Voorsanger was holding his Seder at St. Nazaire, and when\npractically no other Jewish work was being conducted in the entire\noverseas forces.\n\nThere were over 500 majors, 1,500 captains, and more than 6,000\nlieutenants in the American army, with a full share of each in the A. E.\nF. Over 900 Jews were officers in the navy, the most conspicuous of them\nbeing Rear Admiral Joseph Strauss, in command of the mine laying work in\nthe North Sea during the war. In addition there were one captain, five\ncommanders and twelve lieutenant commanders. The marine corps included\namong its personnel over a hundred Jews as officers, among them three\nmajors, one colonel, and Brigadier-General Charles Henry Laucheimer of\nBaltimore, Md., who died in January 1920.\n\nThe latest estimates of casualties run from 13,000 to 14,000, including\nabout 2,800 who died in the service of America. This can be inferred\neasily from the branches of the service in which our Jewish boys were\nfound, as well as from the number of honors they received. After all,\nfor every brave man whose acts were noted and rewarded, many others just\nas heroic fought and bled unseen.\n\nThe number of Jews decorated for conspicuous courage is attested, not\nonly by the Office of War Records, but also by the Jewish Valor Legion,\nan organization of American Jews who received such awards during the\nWorld War. Fully 1,100 citations for valor are on record. Of these, 723\nwere conferred by the American command, 287 by the French, 33 by the\nBritish, and 46 by other allied commands. The Distinguished Service\nCross is worn by 150 American Jews, the French Medaille Militaire by\nfour, and the Croix de Guerre by 174. The Congressional Medal of Honor,\nthe rarest award in the American or any other service, which was\nconferred on only 78 men in the entire service, is worn by three\nAmerican Jews, one of them killed in the act for which he was rewarded.\nI add their official citations, not only for their personal interest,\nbut as an added tribute to these three heroes, a glory both to Jewry and\nto America.\n\n\"Sydney G. Gumpertz, first sergeant, Company E, 132nd Infantry.\nCongressional Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity\nabove and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy in the Bois\nde Forges, France, September 26, 1918. When the advancing line was held\nup by machine-gun fire, Sergeant Gumpertz left the platoon of which he\nwas in command and started with two other soldiers through a heavy\nbarrage toward the machine-gun nest. His two companions soon became\ncasualties from a bursting shell, but Sergeant Gumpertz continued on\nalone in the face of direct fire from the machine-gun, jumped into the\nnest and silenced the gun, capturing nine of the crew. Awarded January\n22, 1919.\"\n\n\"First Sergeant Benjamin Kaufman, Company K, 308th Infantry,\nCongressional Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity\nabove and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy in the Forest\nof Argonne, France, October 4, 1918. Sergeant Kaufman took out a patrol\nfor the purpose of attacking an enemy machine-gun which had checked the\nadvance of his company. Before reaching the gun he became separated from\nhis patrol, and a machine-gun bullet shattered his right arm. Without\nhesitation he advanced on the gun alone, throwing grenades with his left\nhand and charging with an empty pistol, taking one prisoner and\nscattering the crew, bringing the gun and prisoner back to the first aid\nstation. Awarded April 8, 1919.\"\n\n\"Sergeant William Sawelson, deceased, Company M, 312th Infantry,\nCongressional Medal of Honor awarded for conspicuous gallantry and\nintrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy\nat Grandpre, France, October 26, 1918. Hearing a wounded man in a\nshell-hole some distance away calling for water, Sergeant Sawelson upon\nhis own initiative left shelter and crawled through heavy machine-gun\nfire to where the man lay, giving him what water he had in his own\ncanteen. He then went back to his own shell-hole, obtained more water\nand was returning to the wounded man, when he was killed by a\nmachine-gun bullet. Posthumously awarded January 10, 1919.\"\n\nThe 27th Division, in which I served, was fairly typical in this\nrespect, as it was a National Guard unit, composed of volunteers from\nboth the New York metropolitan district and \"up-state.\" There were\nabout a thousand Jews in the entire division and seven hundred of them\nwere in the infantry, machine-gun battalions and engineers, which served\ntogether. I did not find a company without from two to thirty Jewish\nsoldiers, and seldom without at least one Jew among the non-commissioned\nofficers. I remember the time I motored over to one battalion to\norganize a Jewish service and inquired for a \"Jewish non-com\" to take\ncharge of getting the boys together. I was told that three top sergeants\nout of the four companies were named Levi, Cohen and Pesalovsky, and\nthat I could take my choice. The same thing occurred time and again when\nI visited other divisions. For example, Sergeant Major Wayne of the\n320th Infantry prepared the Passover passes for the 40 Jews of his\nregiment, then in the Le Mans area, but missed the Seder himself,\nstaying at his post of duty to prepare the regimental sailing list.\n\nThe 27th Division had several Jews among the officers of high\nrank--Lieutenant Colonel H. S. Sternberger, the division quartermaster;\nLieutenant Colonel Morris Liebman, killed in action in Flanders; Major\n(later Lieutenant Colonel) Emanuel Goldstein, Medical Corps, who was\nawarded the D. S. O. by the British command, one of four such\ndecorations given to officers of our division. Captain Simpson of the\n106th Field Artillery, Lieutenant King of the office of the division\nchief of staff, 2nd Lieutenant Samuel A. Brown of the 108th Infantry,\n2nd Lieutenant Sternberger of the Interpreters' Corps and 2nd Lieutenant\nFlorsheim of the division quartermaster's office were among the officers\nof Jewish origin. In addition, there were a few, such as Sergeant\nSchiff of the 102nd Engineers and Sergeant Struck of division\nheadquarters, who were recommended for commissions for their excellent\nservice but were disappointed on account of the stoppage of all\npromotions after the armistice.\n\nI mentioned in connection with my own work the list of sixty-five Jews\nof the 27th who were killed in action or died in hospitals in France,\ntheir full proportion of the nearly 2,000 dead of the division. The\nfirst man in the 27th who was killed in action was a Jew, Private Robert\nFriedman of the 102nd Engineers. Most of our losses, like those of the\ndivision as a whole, were incurred in the terrific fighting at the\nHindenburg Line, and most of our men were buried there in the great\ndivisional cemeteries of Bony and Guillemont Farm, right at the furthest\npoint which they reached alive. The cemetery of Bony is to be one of the\npermanent American cemeteries in France, and I can still see the Magen\nDavids standing here and there among the rows of crosses, where I had\nthem placed.\n\nThe Jews of the 27th won their full share of decorations, too. Nine of\nthem wear the Distinguished Service Cross conferred by the American\ncommand; one, the British honor of the Distinguished Service Order; one,\nthe British Distinguished Conduct Medal; seven, the British Military\nMedal; one, the French Croix de Guerre with star; and one, the Belgian\nOrder of the Crown. Eliminating cases where one man received several\nsuch honors, fifteen Jews of this one division alone were decorated for\nunusual courage and initiative in battle. I add the official citations\nof four of these men as further examples of the heroism of the Jewish\nsoldiers in the American forces.\n\n\"Major Emanuel Goldstein, Medical Corps, 102nd Engineers. D. S. O.,\nBelgian Order of the Crown. On Sept. 29, 1918, in the vicinity of\nLompire and Guillemont Farm near Ronssoy, France, he remained in the\nmost exposed positions under heavy shell fire and machine-gun fire, to\nrender first aid to several wounded men, displaying exceptional bravery\nand courage, and setting a fine example of devotion to duty to all\nranks.\"\n\n\"Second Lieutenant Samuel A. Brown Jr., 108th Infantry. D. S. C. awarded\nfor extraordinary heroism in action near Ronssoy, France, Sept. 29,\n1918. Advancing with his platoon through heavy fog and dense smoke and\nin the face of terrific fire which inflicted heavy casualties on his\nforces, Lieutenant Brown reached the wire in front of the main\nHindenburg Line, and, after reconnoitering for gaps, assaulted the\nposition and effected a foothold. Having been reenforced by another\nplatoon, he organized a small force, and by bombing and trench fighting\ncaptured over a hundred prisoners. Repeated attacks throughout the day\nwere repelled by his small force. He also succeeded in taking four field\npieces, a large number of machine guns, anti-tank rifles, and other\nmilitary property, at the same time keeping in subjection the prisoners\nhe had taken.\"\n\n\"Corporal Abel J. Levine, Company A, 107th Infantry. For extraordinary\nheroism in action near Bony, France, Sept. 29, 1918. After his platoon\nhad suffered heavy casualties and all the sergeants had been wounded,\nCorporal Levine collected the remaining effectives in his own and other\nunits, formed a platoon and continued the advance. When his rifle was\nrendered useless he killed several of the enemy with his pistol. He was\nwounded shortly afterward, but he refused assistance until his men had\nbeen cared for and evacuated.\" Corporal Levine received the D. S. C. and\nthe British D. C. M.\n\n\"Private Morris Silverberg, Company G, 108th Infantry. For extraordinary\nheroism in action near Ronssoy, France, Sept. 29, 1918. Private\nSilverberg, a stretcher bearer, displayed extreme courage by repeatedly\nleaving shelter and advancing over an area swept by machine-gun and\nshell fire to rescue wounded comrades. Hearing that his company\ncommander had been wounded, he voluntarily went forward alone, and upon\nfinding that his officer had been killed, brought back his body.\"\nPrivate Silverberg received both the D. S. C. and the British M. M.\n\nOne more point must be noted with regard to these Jewish boys who served\nAmerica so bravely and so effectively. Many of them showed in their\nsacrifices the true Jewish spirit of Kiddush ha-Shem, sanctification of\nthe name of God. Time and again have I heard men give such a turn to\ntheir speech, as when I asked a boy from one of our machine gun\nbattalions why he had led a group of volunteers in bringing from an\nexposed position some wounded men of another regiment, an act in which\nthe only other Jew in the company had been killed and for which my\nfriend was later decorated. \"Well, chaplain,\" he answered me, \"there\nwere only two Jewish boys in the company and we'd been kidded about it\na little. We just wanted to show those fellows what a Jew could do.\" Dr.\nEnelow tells a similar story of a boy dying in a hospital, who gave the\nrabbi a last message to his parents, saying: \"Tell them I did my duty as\na soldier and brought honor to the Jewish name.\"\n\nOnce again, in the American forces during the World War, the Jew has\nproved himself a devoted patriot and a heroic soldier, and this time he\nhas done so in broad daylight, before the eyes of all the world.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nJEW AND CHRISTIAN AT THE FRONT\n\n\nTo those of us who served with the United States Army overseas,\nreligious unity, cooeperation between denominations, is more than a\nfar-off ideal. We know under what circumstances and to what extent it is\nfeasible, and just how it deepens and broadens the religious spirit in\nboth chaplain and soldier. We have passed beyond the mutual tolerance of\nthe older liberalism to the mutual helpfulness of the newer devoutness.\nOur common ground is no longer the irreducible minimum of doctrines\nwhich we share; it is the practical maximum of service which we can\nrender together. I was in a critical position to experience this as the\nonly Jewish chaplain in the Twenty-Seventh Division; my duty was to\nminister to the men of the Jewish faith throughout the various units of\nour division, with the friendly cooeperation of the twenty other\nchaplains of various faiths. And I was able to do my work among the\nJews, and to a certain extent among the Christians also, simply because\nthese Protestant and Catholic chaplains were equally friendly and\nhelpful to me and my scattered flock. Not by mutual tolerance but by\nmutual helpfulness we were able to serve together the thousands of\nsoldiers who needed us all.\n\nIt is a commonplace that as men grow acquainted they naturally learn to\nrespect and to like one another. When a Jew from the East Side of New\nYork, who had never known any Christian well except the corner\npoliceman, and a Kentucky mountaineer, who had been reared with the idea\nthat Jews have horns, were put into the same squad both of them were\nbound to be broadened by it. And, provided both of them were normal,\naverage boys, as they were likely to be, they probably became \"buddies\"\nto the great advantage of both of them. Often such associations would\nbring about the sort of a friendship which death itself could not break.\n\nOne of the Jewish chaplains tells an incident of the first night he\nspent in the training camp at Camp Taylor, Ky. The candidate for\nchaplain in the cot next to his was a lanky backwoods preacher from one\nof the southern States. The two met, introduced themselves by name and\ndenomination, and then prepared to \"turn in\" for the night. The rabbi\nnoticed that his ministerial neighbor sat about, hesitated, and played\nfor time generally, even though it was fully time to turn out the\nlights. Finally the matter became so obvious that he could not resist\ninquiring the reason for this delay. The answer came, a bit embarrassed\nbut certainly frank enough: \"I don't want to go to bed till I see how a\nJew says his prayers.\"\n\nOn the whole, considering the many individual differences in an army of\ntwo million men, religious prejudice was not engendered by the army;\nsome persisted in spite of it, and much was lessened by the comradeship\nand enforced intimacy of army life. In most commands prejudice against\nthe Jew was a very small item indeed. It was so rare as to be almost\nnon-existent in places of responsibility. It was often overcome by the\nacid test of battle when men appeared in their true colors and won\nrespect for themselves alone. It was occasionally the fault of the man\nhimself, who turned a personal matter into an accusation of\nanti-Semitism, and sometimes without cause. One Jewish corporal\ncomplained to me of discrimination on the part of his commanding\nofficer, who had recommended his reduction to the ranks. On\ninvestigation, I found that the officer might have been unfair in his\njudgment, but had recommended the same for two non-Jews at the same\ntime; the case may therefore have been one of personal dislike but was\ncertainly not a matter of religious prejudice. When I found authentic\ncases of discrimination, they were usually in the case of some ignorant\nnon-commissioned officer, who presumed on his scanty authority at the\nexpense of some Jewish private. Or it might be a sort of hazing, when a\ngroup of \"rough necks\" selected a foreigner with a small command of\nEnglish as the butt of their jokes. When men complain of prejudice\nagainst Jews in the army, it usually means that they met there a group\nof prejudiced people with whom they would not have come into contact in\ncivil life. The tendency of the American army during the World War was\ndefinitely against prejudice of any kind; prejudice made against\nefficiency, and the higher one went the more difficult it became to find\nany traces of it.\n\nIn the army and especially in overseas service men went naturally to the\nnearest chaplain or welfare organization for any benefit except worship,\nand sometimes for that also. From my first religious service in a\nhospital with the crowd of non-Jews and sprinkling of Jews in the Red\nCross room, I found that the men went to the entertainment hut for\nwhatever it might offer. Every large service afterward, especially if\nheld in a convenient place, included a proportion of non-Jews, and\ninvariably they were both respectful and interested.\n\nThe burial work of the Twenty-Seventh Division at St. Souplet was the\nclimax of cooeperation among chaplains, where the five of us represented\nfive different churches. Our service was a three-fold one, as was the\nlater one held at the larger cemeteries at Bony and Guillemont Farm. I\nhave already referred to the meetings held by the chaplains of our\ndivision to discuss our common work and arrange to do that work most\neffectively together. My very last duty in France was to read the burial\nservice over four Christian sailors drowned outside Brest harbor.\n\nSuch incidents as these were not exceptional at the front or among men\nwho have been at the front and have learned its lesson; I give them\nespecially because they are typical. The men who were under fire\ntogether grew to overlook differences as barriers between man and man.\nThey knew the many times that their lives depended on the courage and\nloyalty of the next man in the line--be he rich or poor, learned or\nignorant, pious or infidel, virtuous or wicked. They grew to respect men\nfor themselves, to serve them for themselves alone. The men used any\nstationery that came to hand, writing home indifferently on paper\nlabeled Y. M. C. A. or K. of C., or Salvation Army, or Red Cross, or\nJewish Welfare Board; they attended a picture show or boxing match\nunder any auspices and were willing to help at any of the huts that\nserved them. In the same way the welfare workers and chaplains\noverlooked one distinction after another, at the end serving all alike\nand regarding their status as soldiers alone. Once when I dropped into a\nstrange camp two boys whom I had never seen crowded through the press of\nmen in the Y. M. C. A. hut; they had seen the insignia of the 27th, and\nbeing fresh from hospital, appealed to me to help them back to the\ndivision that they might return home with their own units. I was never\nsurprised when non-Jews came to me for advice in ordinary cases, but I\nhave had such extreme instances as a Jew and non-Jew coming together, to\nask advice in a case where both felt they had been discriminated against\nby their commanding officer. In hospital work, in front line service,\neven in the ordinary routine of the rest area, we came closer to one\nanother than ever in civil life.\n\nAs I said above, the logical climax of friendly cooeperation comes when\nministers of different faiths assist each other in their own work. I\nshall never forget a day in that busy October at the front when I met a\nBaptist chaplain belonging to our division. \"Hello,\" he said, \"I've just\ncome to headquarters here to look for you and a priest.\" \"All right,\nwhat can I do for you?\" \"Well,\" was his reply, \"our battalion goes into\nthe line tonight, and I wanted the Jewish and Catholic boys to have\ntheir services, too. If you can come over at four o'clock, I'll have the\npriest come at six.\" And so I came there at four, to find the fifteen\nJewish soldiers grouped about a large tree near the battalion\nheadquarters; the chaplain had notified them all. And, as the barn was\nboth dirty and crowded, we held our little service under the tree, even\nthough the rain began in the middle of it. Two of those boys did not\ncome back three days later, and one was cited for heroism, so that I\nhave often remembered the immeasurable service which the cooeperation of\nthat chaplain meant for his men.\n\nOn a minor scale such things took place constantly. One day, going to a\ndistant battalion in a rest area, I not only went to the Y. M. C. A.\nman, who arranged for my services in the school-house, and to a Jewish\ncorporal, who passed the word around to the men of my faith, but I\narranged also that the \"Y\" man should conduct the Protestant service the\nfollowing Sunday, and that the Catholic chaplain on coming should find\narrangements made for his confessions and mass. A classic incident of\nthe war is the story of Chief Rabbi Bloch, of Lyons, a chaplain in the\nFrench army, who met his death before Verdun in the early days of the\nwar while holding a cross before a dying Catholic lad. The incident was\nrelated by the Catholic chaplain of the regiment, who saw it from a\nlittle distance. But by the time the gigantic struggle was over such\nincidents had become almost matters of everyday. I, for one, have read\npsalms at the bedside of dying Protestant soldiers. I have held the\ncross before a dying Catholic. I have recited the traditional confession\nwith the dying Jew. We were all one in a very real sense.\n\nA Christian chaplain preached the sermon on the second day of my Jewish\nNew Year service in Nevers. Similarly, I was a guest, with the other\nmembers of the divisional staff, at the splendid midnight mass arranged\nby Father Kelley in the little village church of Montfort. For the first\ntime in its history, the church was electrically lighted by our signal\ncorps; the villagers and the soldiers were out in force; colonels\nassisted as acolytes; and the brilliant red and gold of the vestments,\nwith the pink satin and white lace of the little choir boys, stood out\nbrilliantly from the dark garments of the French and the olive drab of\nthe Americans. Father Kelley delivered a sermon of profound inspiration,\nas well as a brief address in French to the villagers, whose guests we\nwere. The staff were seated in a little chapel, at one side of the\naltar. The next day my orderly overheard two of the soldiers arguing\nabout me. One insisted: \"I did see the rabbi there right on the\nplatform.\" \"You didn't,\" said the other, \"even if this is the army, they\nwouldn't let him on the platform at a Catholic mass.\" It reminded me of\nthe incident in Paris when I had visited the Cathedral of Notre Dame,\naccompanied by my chauffeur, a Catholic boy, and I had given him a\nlecture on the architecture and symbolism of that splendid structure. It\nwas only afterward that the humor of the situation struck me--a rabbi\nexplaining a cathedral to a devoted Catholic.\n\nEvery chaplain with whom I have compared notes has told me of similar\nexperiences. Chaplain Elkan C. Voorsanger, for example, at the time when\nhe conducted the first official Jewish service overseas at Passover\n1918, received four other invitations in various sections of France both\nfrom army officials and Y. M. C. A. secretaries. At one point the Young\nMen's Christian Association even offered to pay all his expenses if his\ncommanding officer would release him for the necessary time. I have\nmentioned that Rabbi Voorsanger had no regular services in the 77th\nDivision during the fall holydays of 1918, due to the military\nsituation. There was one exception to this, however, a hasty service\narranged at one of the brief stops during the march by Father Dunne of\nthe 306th Infantry, and that service arranged by a priest was conducted\nby the rabbi in a ruined Catholic church. Chaplain Voorsanger is full of\npraise for the thirty chaplains of various religions who worked under\nhim when he was Senior Chaplain of the 77th. Their enthusiastic support\nas subordinates was fully equal to their hearty cooeperation as equals.\n\nPeculiarly enough, the Christian Science chaplain in our division was\nthe only one who found it difficult to become adjusted with the rest.\nThis could hardly have been personal, as he was generally respected. It\nmay have been due in part to the general suspicion of some for the\nministers of a new faith which had lured away a few of their adherents.\nBut it seemed due chiefly to the ideas and the method he represented. He\nwas handicapped for the necessary work of caring for the sick and\nwounded by a unique attitude toward physical suffering, different from\nthe rest of us and different from that of most of the soldiers\nthemselves. As a consequence he could serve most of them only as a\nlayman might. Certainly he could give no religious treatment of disease,\nas the medical department was supreme in its own field. In addition, he\ncould conduct general services only with difficulty. To the rest of us a\nservice meant the same thing,--a psalm, a prayer, a talk, perhaps a\nsong or two. But the Christian Scientist could not give a prayer.\nPrevented from using his ritual by the fact that the service was to be\nnon-sectarian, he had not the power of personal prayer to fall back\nupon. He was not a minister in the same sense as the rest of us, and the\narmy had no proper place for either a healer or a reader.\n\nWith this single exception, I feel certain that every chaplain in France\nhad the same sort of experience. When I first arrived in France I was\none of thirty-five chaplains assembled at the chaplains' headquarters\nfor instruction and assignment. Our evening service was conducted in\nfront of the quaint, angular chateau on a level lawn surrounded by\nstraight rows of poplars. One evening Chaplain Paul Moody, of the Senior\nChaplain's office, gave us an inspirational appeal derived from his own\nexperience and his observation of so many successful chaplains at the\nfront. Afterward, informally, a Catholic told us briefly what we should\ndo in case we found a dying Catholic in the hospital or on the field,\nwith no priest at hand. Then I was asked how best the others might\nminister to a Jewish soldier in extremity. I repeated to them the old\nHebrew confession of faith; _Shema Yisroel adonoi elohenu adonoi echod,_\n\"Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.\" I told them to\nlead the boy in reciting it, or if necessary just to say it for him, and\nthe next morning when I brought down copies of the words for them all I\nwas deeply touched by their eagerness to know them. These men did not go\nout to convert others to their own view of truth and life; they were\nready to serve pious souls and to bring God's presence near to all.\nChristian ministers were eager to help Jews to be better Jews; rabbis\nwere glad to help Christians to be better Christians. We learned amid\nthe danger and the bitterness to serve God and man, not in opposition\nand not even in toleration, but in true helpfulness toward one another.\nI doubt whether these men, once so willing to serve men of all creeds at\nthe risk of their lives, are foremost in the ranks of Jewish\nconversionists to-day.\n\nMuch of this spirit of genuine religion and of equal regard for all\nreligions was due to the example and personal influence of the Senior\nChaplain of the American Expeditionary Forces, Bishop Charles H. Brent,\nnow the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Western New York.\nBishop Brent utilized his great ability, his high spirituality and his\npersonal acquaintance with the Commander-in-Chief all for the welfare of\nthe men in the service. Assiduous in his personal devotions, definite in\nhis personal preaching, when he turned to his duties as Senior Chaplain\nhe simply forgot his own affiliations in the interest of all religions\nalike. Catholic and Protestant had equal faith in the impartiality and\njustice of his acts. He was especially careful in behalf of the Jewish\nmen because he knew that they were a minority and might otherwise be\nneglected. The official orders and the detailed arrangements for the\nvarious holydays were a serious consideration with him. His spirit\nanimated his entire staff. Chaplain Voorsanger felt it from the outset.\nChaplain Paul D. Moody, Bishop Brent's assistant in the chaplains'\noffice at General Headquarters, was animated by it equally with his\nchief. Chaplain Moody, a son of the great evangelist and now in one of\nthe important Presbyterian churches in New York City, was fond of\ntelling how the various commanding officers would often greet him as\n\"Father\" or \"Bishop.\"\n\nIt is hardly surprising that such cooeperation strengthened men in\nloyalty to their own faith. As the soldiers saw the military rank of all\nthe chaplains and their influence everywhere in the interests of the\nmen, as they saw men of other faiths coming to their chaplain because of\nhis loved personality or his high standing, as they saw the official\nbulletins announcing religious services of different faiths at different\nhours but under the same auspices, they grew to respect themselves and\ntheir own faith a little more. A young man is likely to be defiant or\napologetic about being religious unless he sees religion, including\n_his_ religion, respected by his comrades and his commanding officers.\nTherefore this mutual service, instead of weakening the religious\nconsciousness of the various groups, rather strengthened it. Men grew to\nrespect themselves more as they respected others more; they became\nstronger in their own faith as they became more understanding of others.\nThe five chaplains at the burial detail did not give up their own ideas,\nbut they did learn more about the others' faiths, and they certainly\nlearned to respect each other profoundly as workers, as ministers and as\nmen. Thus our mutual friendship and our mutual help became the\nfoundation of all our efforts for the men, religious, personal and\nmilitary. We did our work together as parts of one church, the United\nStates Army.\n\nThis situation was brought out in strong relief for me when I met in Le\nMans a young French priest, who had served as chaplain in an army\nhospital through most of the war. He was overcome with astonishment when\nI told him that, while the majority of the men in our army were\nProtestant, the Senior Chaplain of the area at that time was a Catholic\npriest. I had to go into considerable detail, explaining that in some\norganizations the head was a Protestant, and in one division a Jew.\nFinally he grasped it, with the remark, \"_C'est la liberte_.\" As a\nFrenchman it was hard for him to understand the kind of religious\nliberty which means cooeperation and friendship. In France religious\nliberty is based on hostility and intolerance of religion. Religious\nliberty there means liberty for the irreligious and consequent\nlimitation of the liberty of the religious. On the other hand, religion\nthere has meant historically, the domination of one religion and the\ncurtailment of liberty. It is a peculiar view, which is paralleled among\nFrench Jewry also. Active and interested Jews have little interest in\nmodernism, even in modern methods of religious education; French Jews\nwho are interested in the world to-day have little interest in Judaism.\n\nWe who served together in the United States Army have a different ideal.\nWe think of a religion which gives equal freedom to all other types of\npiety, which works equally with men of every faith in the double cause\nof country and morality, which does not give up its own high faith but\nsees equally the common weal of all humanity, to be served by men of\nmany faiths. We have fixed our gaze upon religion in action, and have\nfound that the things which divide us are chiefly matters of theory,\nwhich do not impede our working effectively together. It needs but the\nsame enthusiasm for the constant and increasing welfare of all God's\ncreatures to carry unity in action of all religious liberals into the\ngeneral life of America, to give us not merely religious toleration, but\nreligious helpfulness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nTHE RELIGION OF THE JEWISH SOLDIER\n\n\nMuch has been written of the soldier's religion, most of it consisting\nof theoretical treatises of how the soldier ought to feel and act,\nwritten by highly philosophic gentlemen in their studies at home or by\njournalistic travelers who had taken a hurried trip to France and\nenjoyed a brief view of the trenches. The soldier himself was\ninarticulate on the subject of his own soul and only the soldier really\nknew. Here and there one finds a genuine human document, like Donald\nHankey's \"Student in Arms,\" which gave the average reaction of a\nthinking man subjected to the trials and indignities of the private\nsoldier in war-time, in words far above those the average soldier could\nhave used. Theorizing about the soldier was worse than useless; it often\nbrought results so directly opposite to the facts that the soldier\nhimself would have been immensely amused to see them.\n\nAs a matter of fact, the soldier had the average mind and faith of the\nyoung American, with its grave lapses and its profound sources of power.\nHe was characterized by inquiry rather than certainty, by desire rather\nthan belief. His mind was restless, keen, eager; it had little\nbackground or stability. It was dominated by the mind of the mass, so\nthat educated men had identical habits of mind with the ignorant on\nproblems of army life. The moral standards of the soldier were a direct\noutgrowth of the morals of sport and business rather than those of the\nchurch. He had a sense of fair play, of dealing with men as men, but no\nfeeling whatever of divine commandments or of universal law.\n\nA significant incident, bringing out the peculiar ideals of the soldier,\nis related by Judge Ben Lindsey in his book, \"The Doughboy's Religion.\"\nHe tells how a number of Y. M. C. A. secretaries conducted\nquestionnaires at various times as to what three sins the soldiers\nconsidered most serious and what three virtues the most important,\nhoping to elicit a reply that the most reprehensible sins were drink,\ngambling and sexual vice. But hardly a soldier mentioned these three.\nThe men were practically unanimous in selecting as the most grievous\nsin, cowardice and the greatest virtue, courage; as second, selfishness\nand its correlative virtue, self-sacrifice; and as third, pride, the\nholier-than-thou attitude, with its virtue, modesty. The result, to one\nwho knew the soldier, would have been a foregone conclusion.\n\nThe soldier was honest, he gave no cut-and-dried answers but his own\nfull opinion, based upon the circumstances of his own life. At the front\ncourage is actually the most important attribute of manhood and\ncowardice the unforgivable sin. One coward can at any moment imperil the\nlives of his entire unit by crying out in surprise on a night patrol, by\ndeserting his post as sentinel or gas guard, by infecting with the\nspirit of panic the weaker men who follow any contagious example.\nSelfishness likewise was more than serious; it was vital. The selfish\nman was one who ate more than his share of the scanty rations on the\nmarch, who did not carry his full pack but had to be helped by others,\nwho was first in line at the canteen but last to volunteer for\ndisagreeable duty. Pride, on the other hand, was not dangerous but\nmerely irritating in the extreme to an army of civilians, of Americans\nwith the spirit of equal citizens, who felt that they were doing\neverything for their country and resented equally the autocratic and the\npatronizing manner. Besides the soldier saw examples of these his\nhighest virtues about him constantly. Courage became a commonplace;\nself-sacrifice an everyday matter. Officers often shared the discomforts\nand exceeded the dangers of their men. When one reads the accounts of\ncitations for the D. S. C. and Medal of Honor, one wonders that human\nbeings could do such things. And when we who were at the front recall\nthe utter democracy of those days, how salutes and formality of every\nkind were forgotten while only leadership based on personality could\nprevail, we realize anew the emphasis of the soldier on modesty and his\nresentment of the attitude of many a civilian and even a few military\nmen in patronizing him either as a common soldier or as a miserable\nsinner.\n\nAs to religious tendencies, the soldier had, first and foremost, hope.\nHe looked forward to better things both for himself and for the world.\nHe had the religious longing and the religious certainty that the future\nwill witness the dawning of a better day. He had a vast respect for\nmanhood, though his democracy did not go so far as to include other\nnations, whom he very largely despised on account of their \"queerness\"\nand his own ignorance. He had an abiding hatred for anything which\nsmacked in the slightest degree of hypocrisy or \"bluff.\" I mention this\nin my next chapter in connection with preaching to soldiers, but\npreaching was not the only field in which it applied. The soldier laid\nan inordinate value upon personal participation in front line work,\nignoring the orders which necessarily kept the major part of the A. E.\nF. in back area work, in supply, repair, or training duty. I know of one\nchaplain, for example, who joined a famous fighting division shortly\nafter the armistice, through no fault of his own but because he had been\npreviously detailed to other duty, and who found his service there full\nof obstacles through the suspicion of the men--because he who was\npreaching to them had not been under fire when they were. Of course,\nthis worked favorably for those of us whom the boys had personally seen\nunder fire at the first aid post or in the trenches.\n\nThis very respect for deeds and suspicion of words, especially of polite\nor eloquent words, made for suspicion of the churches and churchmen. We\nhad so pitifully few chaplains to a division, and some of them were\nnecessarily assigned to hospitals in the rear. Only here and there did a\nY. M. C. A. or K. of C. secretary go with the men under fire. True, they\nhad nothing to do there, as there was no canteen or entertainment hut at\nthe front; true, strict orders forbade their entering certain territory\nor going over the top. The soldier asked not of orders or duties; he\nknew only that this man, who in many cases seemed to consider himself\nsuperior, who preached and taught and organized, had not slept night\nafter night in the rain, had not fallen prone in the mud to dodge the\nflying missiles, had not lived on one cold meal a day or had to carry\nrations on his shoulder that he and his comrades might enjoy their\nscanty fare.\n\nTherefore the soldier cared little for creeds of any kind. He could not\napply any particular dogmas to the unique circumstances in which he\nfound himself--he had probably never applied them to any great extent\neven in the more commonplace circumstances of peace--and he was\nsuspicious of many of those who attempted to apply them for him. The\nsoldier needed religion; he wanted God; he cared very little for\nchurches, creeds or churchmen.\n\nIn most characteristics the Jewish soldier was one with his Christian\nbrothers. He differed only in those special facts or ideas which showed\na different home environment or a different tradition. For example, the\nusual Christian minister used the word, \"atonement\" with a special\nmeaning which was understood, if not accepted, by every Christian\npresent, but which meant nothing whatever to the Jew, except through the\nvery different association with the Day of Atonement. So any analysis of\nthe religion of the Christian soldier would begin with his attitude\ntoward the atonement, but with the Jewish soldier this must be\nomitted--he had no attitude at all. The Jewish soldier was guided by the\nsame general facts in his attitude toward the Jewish religion which\nanimated the Christian soldier in his attitude toward the Christian\nreligion; the difference was largely that of the religion which they\nconsidered rather than of the men themselves.\n\nOf course, it was hard to be a good Jew in the army. The dietary laws\nwere impossible of fulfillment, and the Talmudic permission to violate\nthem in case of warfare meant less to the average soldier than the fact\nthat he was breaking them. The Sabbath could not be kept at all, even in\nrest areas where there was no immediate danger to life. No soldier could\ndisobey an order to work on the Sabbath; if the work was there, the\nsoldier had to do it. In many ways Judaism was difficult and\nChristianity just as difficult. For example, I know of one division\nwhere the Passover service was held under difficulties, as the unit was\nabout to move, and where the Easter service had the same handicap, as\nthe men had just finished moving and were not yet established in their\nnew quarters. Most of the obstacles to religious observance were common\nto all religions.\n\nA few Jews denied or concealed their religion in the army as elsewhere.\nSome few enlisted under assumed names; a number denied their Judaism and\navoided association with Jews, perhaps fearing the anti-Semitism which\nthey had heard was rife in military circles. Their fear was groundless\nand their deception, as a rule, deceived nobody. The American army as it\nwas organized during the war had no place for prejudice of any kind.\nEfficiency was the watchword; the best man was almost invariably\npromoted; in all my experience abroad I have never seen a clear case of\nanti-Semitism among higher officers and only seldom in the ranks.\nOccasionally also I met the type of Jew who admitted his origin but had\nno interest in his religion. Such a one--a lieutenant--who was known as\na friend of the enlisted men generally and especially of the Jewish\nones, assisted me greatly in arranging for the services for the fall\nholydays, but did not attend those services himself. He represented the\ntype now fortunately becoming rarer in our colleges, the men who have\ntoo much pride to deny their origin but too little Jewish knowledge to\nbenefit by it. It is noteworthy that this particular man was stationed\nin the S. O. S. and had at that time never been at the front. Most men\nturn toward religion under the stress of battle; those who have never\nbeen in battle presented in certain ways a civilian frame of mind.\n\nMost of the Jews in the army were orthodox in background, rather than\neither reform or radical. Perhaps the orthodox did not have the\nnumerical superiority they seemed to possess; in that case I saw them as\nthe most interested group, the ones who came most gladly to meet the\nchaplain. Not that the other two groups were lacking in this army, which\ntook in practically all the men of twenty-one to thirty-one years in\nAmerica. The dominating group, however, was orthodox in background,\nthough most of them were not orthodox in conviction. Causes are not far\nto seek--they had never studied orthodoxy; they were young men and had\nfew settled religious convictions; they were in the midst of a modern\nworld where other doctrines were more attractive. The fact is that their\nconvictions were usually directed toward Zionism rather than toward one\nor another form of Judaism itself. Again, they were without reasons for\ntheir interest. Zionism appealed to them simply as a bold, manly, Jewish\nideal; they did not enter into questions either of practicability or of\ndesirability. In other words, they were young men, not especially\nthoughtful, who were interested in Jewish questions only as one of many\nphases of their lives. They had their own trend, but were glad to accept\nleadership of a certain type, adapted to their own lives and problems.\n\nAll these Jewish soldiers welcomed a Jewish chaplain. The Catholics and\nProtestants had chaplains, and all Jews except the negligible few who\ndenied their faith were very glad to be represented also, to have their\nreligion given official recognition in the army and to see their own\nchaplain working under the same authority and along the same lines as\nchaplains of other religions. Most of the Jewish soldiers had personal\nreasons also to greet a chaplain. In many of the occasions, small and\ngreat, when a Jewish soldier desired advice, aid or friendship, he\npreferred a Jewish chaplain to any other person. As a chaplain he had\nthe influence to take up a case anywhere and the information as to\nprocedure, while only a Jew can feel and respond to the special\ncircumstances of the Jewish men. On the other hand, not all Jewish\nsoldiers were eager to welcome the Jewish Welfare Board although they\nall liked it after it had arrived and made good. Some were afraid of any\ndistinction in these semi-military welfare organizations, feeling that\nthe two already in the field, the Y. M. C. A. and K. of C., were quite\nadequate. The Jewish Welfare Board, however, made such an impression at\nonce on both Jews and non-Jews that even the doubtful ones became\nreconciled and felt that Jewish work in the army was more than justified\nby results. As always among Jews, who lay great emphasis on non-Jewish\nopinion, one of the chief causes of the popularity among Jews of Jewish\nwar work was its popularity among Christians. When a Jewish boy found\nhis building overcrowded by non-Jews, when he had to come early to get a\nseat at the picture show among all the Baptists and Catholics, when he\nsaw Christian boys writing to their parents on J. W. B. stationery, he\nthought more of himself and his own organization. This same fact refuted\nthe argument against segregation; men of all faiths used the J. W. B.\nhuts, just as they did those of the other welfare organizations. They\nwere one more facility for men of every religion, even though organized\nby Jews and conducted from a Jewish point of view.\n\nIn their religious services, as in most other things, the Jewish boys\nliked practices which reminded them of home. Just as many of them\nenjoyed a Yiddish story at an occasional literary evening, so they all\nappreciated the traditional Seder at Passover more than all the shows\nand entertainments which were provided at the Passover leave. They\npreferred to have many of the prayers in Hebrew, even though I seldom\nhad a Jewish congregation in the army in which more than one third of\nthe men understood the Hebrew prayers. They liked the home-like and\nfamiliar tone of the Jewish service on both Sabbaths and festivals. They\npreferred to wear their caps at service and to carry out the traditional\ncustom in all minor matters.\n\nBut at the same time they had no objection to changes in traditional\npractice. The abbreviated prayerbook of the Jewish Welfare Board was\nmuch appreciated, even though one or two of the boys would state proudly\nthat they had also a special festival prayerbook. The short service was\npractical and the boys therefore preferred it to the longer one of the\nsynagogue. They understood that, with the large number of non-Jews at\nour services and the usual majority of Jews who could not read Hebrew,\nit was necessary to read part of the prayers in English. They liked an\nEnglish sermon, too, although the chaplain skilled in army methods\nalways gave a very informal talk, far from the formal sermon of the\nsynagogue. And when interested they asked questions, often interrupting\nthe even flow of the sermon but assisting the rabbi and congregation to\nan understanding of the problem at issue.\n\nOne of the chief characteristics of an army congregation was its\nconstant desire to participate in the service. The soldiers liked\nresponsive readings; they preferred sermons with the open forum method;\nthey were ready to volunteer to usher, to announce the service\nthroughout the unit, or for any job from moving chairs to chanting the\nservice. At the Passover services at Le Mans, we had all the volunteers\nnecessary among the crowd for everything from \"K. P.\" (kitchen police)\nto assist in preparing the dinner to an excellent reader for the\nprophetic portion. The services meant more to the soldiers as they\nbecame their own.\n\nAnother characteristic of services in the army was the large number of\nnon-Jews attending them. I have come to a Y. M. C. A. on a Sunday\nmorning directly after the Protestant chaplain, when most of his\ncongregation joined me, and my group in consequence was nine-tenths\nnon-Jewish. At first this factor was a source of embarrassment to many\nof the Jewish men. They came to me beforehand to whisper that a few\nnon-Jews were present, but I took it as a matter of course, having\nlearned my lesson with my first service in France. Later even the most\nself-conscious of Jews accepted the presence of non-Jews at a Jewish\nservice just as Christians expect those of other denominations than\ntheir own. When Jewish services often have from ten to eighty per cent.\nof non-Jews in attendance, the Jewish soldiers are doubly glad to have a\npartially English service and a sermon. They want the Christians to\nrespect their religion as they do their own, an end usually very easy of\nattainment. And while a few Jews would have preferred to drop the\nspecial Jewish characteristics of our service, I have never heard a\ncritical word from a Christian about our wearing our hats, our Hebrew\nprayers, and the rest. Often, in fact, I have had to answer respectful\nquestions, giving the sort of information which broadens both sides and\nmakes for general tolerance.\n\nAt the front, even the most thoughtless desired some sort of a personal\nreligion. In the midst of the constant danger to life and limb, seeing\ntheir comrades about them dead and wounded, with life reduced to the\nminimum of necessities and the few elemental problems, men were forced\nto think of the realities of life and death. With these eternal\nquestions forced upon them, the great majority must always turn to\nreligion. The men _prayed_ at the front. They wanted safety and they\nfelt the need of God. After a battle they were eager to offer thanks for\ntheir own safety and to say the memorial prayers for their friends who\nhad just laid down their lives. Perhaps the most religious congregation\nI have ever had was the little group of men who gathered together under\nthe trees after the great battle at the Hindenburg Lane. The impressions\nof the conflict had not yet worn off. The men were, in a way, uplifted\nby their terrific experiences. And the words they spoke there of their\nfallen comrades were infinitely touching. The appeal of a memorial\nprayer was so profound in the army that many of the Protestant chaplains\nfollowed the Episcopal and Catholic custom and prayed for the dead\nalthough their own churches do not generally follow the custom.\n\nBut with all this deep yearning for personal religion, the men adopted\nfatalism as their prevalent philosophy. For one thing, it seemed to\nanswer the immediate facts the best. When five men are together in a\nshell hole and a bursting shell kills three of them and leaves the two\nunharmed, all our theories seem worthless. When one man, volunteering\nfor a dangerous duty, comes back only slightly gassed, while another\nleft at headquarters is killed at his dinner by long distance fire, men\nwonder. And when they must face conditions like this day after day,\nnever knowing their own fate from minute to minute, only sure that they\nare certain to be killed if they stay at the front long enough, they\nbecome fatalists sooner or later. As the soldiers used to say, \"If my\nnumber isn't on that shell, it won't get me.\" I argued against fatalism\nmany times with the soldiers, but I found when it came my own turn to\nlive under fire day after day that a fatalistic attitude was the most\nconvenient for doing one's duty under the constantly roaring menace, and\nI fear that--with proper philosophic qualifications--for the time being,\nI was as much of a fatalist as the rest.\n\nAt the rear the personal need for religion was less in evidence. The\nmen who had gone through the fire were not untouched by the flame, and\ngave some evidence of it from time to time. The men who had not been at\nthe front, who comprised the majority in back areas, had no touch of\nthat feeling. They all shared in the yearning for home and the things of\nhome and for Judaism as the religion of home, for the traditional\nservice of the festivals, for the friendship, ministrations and\nassistance of the chaplain. Judaism meant more to them in a strange\nland, amid an alien people, living the hard and unlovely life of the\ncommon soldier, than it ever did at home when the schul was just around\nthe corner and the careless youth had seldom entered it. The lonely\nsoldier longed for Judaism as the religion of home just as under fire he\nlonged for comfort from the living God. And the military approval of all\nreligions on the same plane, the recognition by the non-Jewish\nauthorities of his festivals and his services, gave Judaism a standing\nin his eyes which it had lacked when only the older people of his own\nfamily ever paid much attention to religion. Thus Judaism as an\ninstitution, as the religion of home, had a great place in the heart of\nthe soldier in France.\n\nSome of the men, especially at the first, felt that they were being\nneglected by the Jews of America, that our effort was not commensurate\nwith that which the Christian denominations were making to care for the\nsoldiers of their faiths. We must admit sadly that they had some\njustification for such a view. Our representatives arrived in France\nlate though not at all too late for splendid results. American Jewry was\nalmost criminally slow in caring for our hundred thousand boys in\nservice abroad. A few of the soldiers carried this complaint even to\nthe point of bitterness and estrangement from Judaism. Here and there I\nmet an enlisted man who challenged Jewry as negligent. Usually these\nwere not our most loyal or interested Jews, but they were Jews and\nshould not have been neglected. The men who entertained real loyalty to\ntheir faith were usually active already in some minor way and ready to\ncooperate with the Jewish Welfare Board when it was in a position to\nback them up. Most of the men, however, were eager to forgive as in a\nfamily quarrel as soon as our welfare workers arrived in France and\nshowed immediate accomplishment.\n\nOur Jewish boys came back from overseas with certain new knowledge of\nlife and new valuation of their religion. Beginning merely as average\nyoung men in their twenties, they acquired the need and appreciation of\ntheir ancestral faith, though not in a conventional sense. They are not\nto-day reform Jews in the sense of adherents of a reform theology;\nneither are they orthodox in the sense of complete and consistent\nobservance. They have felt the reality of certain truths in Judaism, the\ncomfort it brings to the dying and the mourner, the touch of home when\none celebrates the festivals in a foreign land, the real value of Jewish\nfriends, a Jewish minister, a Jewish club to take the place of the home\nthey missed over there. That is, Judaism means more to them both as a\nlonging and an institution.\n\nBut not all the things which we customarily associate with Judaism have\nthis appeal to them. Some seem to them matters of complete\nindifference, and the usual emphasis on the wrong thing makes them feel\nthat the synagogue at home is out of sympathy with their new-found\nyearning. If we give them what we consider good for them, they will take\nnothing. If we give them what they want--the religion of God, of home,\nof service--and with all three terms defined as they have seen and felt\nthem, then they will prove the great constructive force in the synagogue\nof to-morrow. The Jewish soldier had religion; if he was at the front,\nhe has had the personal desire for God; in any case he has felt the\nlonging for the religion of home. He was often proud of his fellow Jews,\nsometimes of his Judaism. He did heroic acts gladly, feeling the added\nimpetus to do them because he must not disgrace the name of Jew.\n_Kiddush ha Shem_, sanctification of the name of God, was the impelling\nmotive of many a wearer of the D. S. C., though he may never have heard\nthe term. The recognition by church and synagogue of the world-shaking\nevents of the war must be accompanied by an equal recognition of the\ninfluence of war on the minds and hearts of the men who engaged in it,\nand for whom those world-shaking events have become a part of their very\nbeing.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nPREACHING TO SOLDIERS\n\n\nPreaching to soldiers, as I soon learned, was a very different thing\nfrom addressing a civilian congregation. The very appearance of the\ngroup and place was odd to a minister from civil life--young men in\nolive drab, sitting on the rough benches of a welfare hut or grouped\nabout in a comfortable circle on the grass of a French pasture. The\ngroup was homogeneous to an extent elsewhere impossible, as all were\nmen, all were young, and all were engaged in the same work and had the\nsame interests. The congregation and the preaching became specialized;\nthe work became narrower but more directly applicable to the individual\nthan in civil life. The soldiers had unusual experiences and interests\nas their common background; their needs were different from those of any\ngroup of civilians, in or out of a church or synagogue. They were\nsoldiers and had to be understood and approached as such.\n\nThe circumstances of our services were never twice the same. I have led\ngroups in worship in huts of the Y. M. C. A., K. of C., and J. W. B.; in\nchateaux, army offices, and barns; yes, and out of doors in the rain. I\nhave come to a Y. M. C. A. and found it full, taking my group for an\nannounced service to the stage and lowering the curtain for privacy.\nOnce, in a great brick building used by the \"Y,\" I found the place\noccupied by a miscellaneous crowd of a thousand men, reading, writing,\nplaying checkers, lined up at the canteen for candy and cigarettes. My\nservices had been announced and my fifty men were present, some of them\nafter a five-mile walk. The secretary in charge and I walked about to\nfind a vacant spot and finally found one, the prize ring. So I called\nfor attention, announced my service, and held it in the prize ring, with\nmy men seated on benches in the ring itself. The non-Jews near by\nstopped their reading or writing to listen to the little sermon, so that\nmy actual audience was considerably larger than my group of worshipers.\n\nI remember one week-day evening when I came to a J. W. B. hut in a camp\nnear Le Mans for an announced service only to find the place packed to\nthe doors. On inquiry, for such a crowd was unprecedented in this\nparticular camp, I found that a minstrel show had been unexpectedly\nobtained and was to run later in the evening. So, while the actors were\nmaking up behind the curtain, I held forth in front, and when the show\nwas announced as ready, a couple of Irish soldiers and a Swede pushed to\none side and made a little room for me in the front row.\n\nThis very informality and friendliness of spirit meant, first of all,\nthat one could not \"preach\" to soldiers in any case. They were\nintolerant of preaching. They did not want to be preached to. They\nwanted \"straight goods, right from the shoulder.\" They wanted deeds more\nthan words, or at least words which were simple and direct, of the\nforce of deeds. One who knew soldiers had to _talk_ to them, not preach.\nThe more informal, the more direct, the more effective. A good sermon\nwould often miss fire completely before an audience of soldiers when a\ngood talk would wake them up and stir them. Informality, simplicity,\nknowledge of the soldier and his needs were the best qualities with\nwhich to approach the enlisted man, especially when he was or had been\nin the actual fighting and thus acquired a new sense of perspective. The\nstrongest hatred of the fighting man was directed toward sham of\nwhatever type, and he exerted that prejudice without any fine sense of\ndiscrimination against anything that seemed to him pretentious or\nhollow. The danger of pretense or dishonesty in the trench or on a\npatrol seemed to have entered into the whole mentality of the soldier.\nHe distrusted the brilliant orator, who found more difficulty in winning\nhim over than did the simpler and more direct type of speaker. He was\ncertain to prick the bubble of a poseur at once, and was more than\nsuspicious of anything which even hinted at pose or pretense.\n\nFor one thing, the material had to be concrete, the sort of thing the\nsoldier knew. Jew and non-Jew were very nearly the same in the army,\nwith certain minor differences of background. And hardly ever did one\nhave an audience composed overwhelmingly of Jews; there was always a\nlarge admixture of others in any army audience, even when a Jewish\nservice had been announced. Now, as to background and memories, our army\nwas too mixed to rely on them for much material. When the chaplain\nspoke of home, the soldier might think of a tenement home or a\nranch-house or a mountaineer's cottage. Certainly, only a few would ever\nhave the same picture as the chaplain. When he spoke of foreigners, he\nmight be addressing a group composed largely of Poles, Italians and\nIrish, who entertained very different ideas of what a foreigner might\nbe, but would all consider our old Southern population, white and black,\nas foreign.\n\nThe only common ground of all soldiers was the army. The men knew work,\ndiscipline, war. They did not regard these things as an officer would,\nand a wise preacher found out their attitude in detail whenever he\ncould. But this was concrete material, common to them all. They all\nhated to be under authority, but had nevertheless learned the lesson of\ndiscipline for practical purposes. They were fascinated by fighting, but\nfeared it and preferred it, on the whole, to the tedium of peace. They\nfound a greater monotony in army drill than in any other one thing in\nthe world. They were brave when occasion arose. They had seen their\nfriends drop dead at their side and had mourned and buried them. They\nhad seen comrades promoted, now by favoritism, now by ability, and held\na mixed feeling of ambition and of dislike for responsibility and the\ndrudgery of thinking for themselves. They had problems of conduct,\nproblems of morale, problems of vision, and they welcomed any discussion\nof their own problems in their own language, while despising infinitely\nthe man who made a mistake in military terminology or showed lack of\nknowledge of the army. Their knowledge and their interest was narrow\nbut keen, and one was compelled to meet the soldier on his own ground to\ninterest or influence him.\n\nThis concrete material of the soldier's daily life had to be presented\nto him in his own language--minus the profanity which was all too common\nand meaningless in the average soldier's vocabulary. Here again the\nsoldier proved a unique audience. With all his quickness to grasp an\nidea, his lightning sense of humor, his immediate sense of reality and\nrecognition of fact, he had in many cases the vocabulary of a\nten-year-old child. Many of our soldiers were from the mine, the farm,\nthe sweatshop. Many of them learned English from the daily papers; many\nfrom their semi-literate companions. A few hundred very simple English\nwords and plenty of army slang were the chief reliance of the preacher,\nand other expressions had to be defined as one went along. One did not\nneed to \"talk down\" to the soldier in ideas--he could leap past a course\nof argument to a sure conclusion in any field within his experience--but\nthe language was necessarily the language of the soldier for either full\ncomprehension or complete sympathy.\n\nOf course, the average soldier, Jew or non-Jew, had no homiletic\nbackground; he was not a frequent listener to sermons in civil life. In\nmany cases the men admitted that they had never been in a church in\ntheir lives. Many of the Jewish boys had not been to a synagogue for\nyears, and when they had gone many of them had attended an orthodox\nservice where they had not understood a single word of the Hebrew\nservice. Therefore the language of the Bible meant literally nothing to\nthem without paraphrasing, except where it came very close to modern\nspeech. Therefore also the cant phrases of the pulpit or of the public\nspeaker generally had no meaning whatever to their minds, favorable or\nthe reverse. They left the soldiers completely untouched. Thus the best\ncivilian sermon may have been meaningless to a group of soldiers, while\na direct talk, even a sort of conversation with the audience, was of\nreal benefit to them. For there was no formality about an army audience.\nIf one made the mildest joke, the boys laughed out. If one \"paused for a\nreply,\" the reply was apt to come in loud and unmistakable tones. In a\ntalk to a group about to return home, for example, I remarked, \"I\nsuppose you'll all reenlist in the National Guard when you get mustered\nout,\" only to be greeted by an immediate chorus of groans. If the\nsoldiers were interested, they interrupted with questions; if\nuninterested, they frankly got up and left the room. They gave more than\nthe cold decorum of a church; they gave a living response; they talked\nwith and thought with the preacher. But the type of decorum one found in\na church or temple was utterly beyond them. Their response was better,\nbut different in its very activity.\n\nCertainly, there were different audiences even among soldiers. I know of\none preacher who traveled about France with a great speech on courage\nwhich fell utterly flat on a certain occasion. He had made the mistake\nof speaking on courage to a group of men from the Service of Supply,\nwhose chief contribution to the war had been carrying cases of canned\nsalmon and repairing roads. A certain chaplain had a battalion of recent\nimmigrants mustered for a service before going into battle, only to be\nprivately cursed afterward in the five languages spoken by the boys he\nhad addressed. For he had made those boys give up their short period of\nrest to talk to them of home and mother, to make them think of the dear\nones they were trying to forget, to put before them the one thought that\nwas most likely to unnerve them for the terrible task ahead!\n\nIt was just as great a mistake to preach about sacrifice after a battle.\nIn battle sacrifice was the most common thing; ordinary men rose to\nheights of heroism to save their \"buddies\" or to assist in the advance.\nThe high courage of self-sacrifice became familiar. Preaching\nself-sacrifice to these men was useless--for Christian as well as Jew.\nThey had seen stretcher bearers shot down while carrying their precious\nburdens to the rear. They had seen officers killed while getting their\nmen under shelter. They had seen the gas guard, as a part of his daily\nduty, risk the most horrible of deaths in order to give the alarm for\nhis comrades. Such men responded to an appeal on the divine in man, on\nthe brotherhood of all those heroes about them, on Americanism, on a\nhundred congenial themes; they did not see the cogency of an appeal to\nsacrifice.\n\nThe profound friendships and violent dislikes of the soldier have been\noften noticed. His fidelity to his \"buddy,\" to any popular officer, to\nhis company and regiment, stand out as part of his vigorous, boyish\noutlook. On the other hand, a swiftly acquired prejudice would go with\nhim forever in the face of many facts and much argument to the\ncontrary. The relative standing of the Y. M. C. A. and the Salvation\nArmy among the men is a case in point. The Young Men's Christian\nAssociation was by far the largest war work organization which worked\namong the mass of the soldiers, as the Red Cross confined its activities\nlargely to hospitals and related fields. It was a wide-spread\norganization, covering practically every unit and almost every type of\nactivity, religious, athletic, entertainment, canteen. But the soldier,\nwhile using the Y. M. C. A., disliked it. The Salvation Army, a very\nsmall organization in both amount and scope of work, which I never saw\nin action because I did not happen to be in the limited sector it\ncovered, was, however, popular if only by hearsay in every part of the\ngreat army. Now, the soldier had very real grievances against the \"Y.\"\nIt charged him more for its tobacco than did the quartermaster's store;\nit gave away very little, while other organizations, not burdened with\nthe canteen, gave away a great deal; it had a certain proportion of\nmisfits, men who did not belong in any military work, who considered\nthemselves better than the common soldier and did not share his trials\nor his viewpoint.\n\nThese facts were all explained later; some of them were inevitable. The\npresence of a board of inquiry in the army testified that the caliber\neven of army officers was not always what it should have been. The\ncanteen had been undertaken by the Y. M. C. A. at the request of the\narmy authorities, who desired to be relieved of the tremendous burden,\nand its prices were determined by cost plus transportation, which latter\nitem was not included by the quartermaster's stores. The tremendous rush\nof the last six months of the war made the task too great for any of\nthe organizations in the field, including sometimes even the\nquartermaster's corps. But after the prejudice had been conceived it\ncould not be shaken. It persisted in spite of excuses, in spite of\nremedies for some of the evils, in spite of the excellent work which the\nY. M. C. A. did in the leave areas. I have mentioned its activities in\nNice, Monte Carlo, and Grenoble, how it provided the enlisted man with\nfree entertainment,--excursions, dances and shows, during his entire\nperiod on leave. This striking contribution to the morale and the\npleasure of the forces was almost overlooked in the general criticism.\nOn the other hand, nobody ever heard the enthusiastic doughboy mention a\nmistake made by the more limited forces of the Salvation Army, which\ntherefore received more than adequate commendation for its really\neffective work.\n\nA similar violent contrast existed in the soldier's attitude toward the\nBritish and colonial soldiers, especially the Australians. The doughboy\nliked the \"Ausies\"; he despised the \"Tommie.\" The usual phrase was: \"Oh,\nwell, the 'Tommies' are all right to hold the line, but it takes the\n'Ausies' to make a push.\" This was strictly untrue, according to the\nterrific fighting we ourselves witnessed on the British front. It was\nsimply that the Australians were all volunteers, young and dashing, like\nthe pioneers of the western plains, the precursors of our own men. They\nwere independent, lawless and aggressive. The British whom we knew were\nthe survivors of four years of warfare, veterans of many a campaign in\nthe field and siege in the hospital, or older men, the last draft of the\nmanhood of Great Britain. No wonder our boys liked the \"Ausies\" and\nrefused to see any good whatever in that very different species of men,\nthe \"Tommies.\"\n\nSo the soldier was an exacting but a grateful audience. He emphasized\ndeeds rather than words, and therefore he was much easier of approach\nfor his own chaplain, who was under the same regulations as he, who went\nwith him to the front and tended the wounded and the dead under fire,\nthan for the most eloquent or the most illustrious of civilian\npreachers. He conceived violent likings and equally violent prejudices,\nalways based upon some sort of reason but usually carried beyond a\nreasonable degree. He had to be approached on his own ground, with\nmaterial from his own experience, with language which he could\nunderstand. And when that was done, he was the most thankful audience in\nthe world. He thought with the speaker, responded to him, aided him. As\nan audience he was either the most friendly and helpful in the world or\nthe most disappointing. But that depended on the speaker and the\naudience being in harmony, knowing and liking each other. A man who knew\nand loved the soldier could work with him and help him in achieving\ngreat results, for the American soldier, though the most terrible enemy,\nwas also the best friend in the world.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nMORALE AND MORALS\n\n\nNo thorough scientific study of the problem of morale has ever been\nmade, in either military or civilian life. Every one is familiar with\nmany of its manifestations, but very few have gone into their causes\nexcept incidentally to the practical needs of the moment. That was the\ncase in the A. E. F., where both chaplains and line officers were deeply\nconcerned in the morale of our troops, at first as fighting forces and\nafter the armistice as citizens and representatives of America abroad.\nWe tried this and that expedient, some good and some bad. Often we\nneglected the very act which was most essential. Often we did nothing\nwhatever until it was too late. Unit commanders, chaplains, and even G.\nH. Q. were alike forced to employ empirical, trial-and-error methods\ninstead of a fundamental, scientific approach. The only apology for this\nsituation is that we went into the army with certain equipment which did\nnot include a rounded view of mass psychology, and that this same\nignorance is universal in civil life as well. A competent investigator\nwould probably detect the same errors in similar social organizations of\nour young men in civil life which were so painfully obvious in the army.\nThis brief chapter is by no means intended to take the place of such a\nscientific study; it may serve as material for one, and in addition may\nprovide certain facts of importance in themselves.\n\nMorale in the army represented two distinct problems, the front line and\nthe rear. The former demanded high tension, the necessity of unified and\ninstantaneous action. The latter demanded steadiness in daily duties,\ntraining, drill and study, the same qualities needed by the worker in\ncivil life but under unusual circumstances. And between the two there\nwas a gap, because the let-down from the one type of morale might\nresult, not in the other type, but in no morale at all. The good soldier\nin camp might be a very poor soldier at the front, where different\nqualities were required; the man who would win his decoration at the\nfront for reckless bravery was often the worst soldier in camp, judging\nby the number of punishments for the infraction of minor rules of\ndiscipline. There is the case, for example, of the former gunman who won\nhis D. S. C. for the very qualities which had formerly sent him to\nprison. Even the best of soldiers, at both front and rear, had to\nwithstand a serious mental shock when he passed from one of these\nsituations to the other, and especially when he retired into a rest area\nafter a hard spell in the trenches.\n\nIn the American army front-line morale was by far the easier type to\nmaintain. In some other armies, I was told, the opposite was the case,\nbut the average American boy makes a good fighting soldier with far less\nstrain than it takes to turn him into a good barracks or training-camp\nsoldier. His is the dash, the courage, the spirit of \"Let's go!\"; he is\nmore likely to lack the sense of subordination, of instant obedience to\norders, which constitutes the first essential of a good soldier in the\nrear. The object of morale at the front is action--instant, unified,\naggressive, with every nerve and muscle strained to the utmost toward\nthe one end. The means of this type of morale is confidence. The good\nsoldier thinks that he belongs to the best company in the best division\nin any army in the world; that his officers are the ablest, his comrades\nthe most loyal, his own soldierly qualities at least on a par with the\nbest. Each division was firmly convinced that its own battles won the\nwar, while the others merely helped. None of them would give the French\nand British credit for more than adequate assistance, ignoring\ncompletely their years of struggle before we even entered the conflict.\nBut this sort of self-centered confidence was the characteristic of the\ngood soldier, the man who would follow his captain in any attack,\nhowever desperate, who never looked whether his comrades were coming but\nwent ahead in calm certainty that they would be even with him. One hint\nof wavering or doubt would break up this high steadiness of spirit, but\nas long as it held the men who possessed it would fight on in the face\nof seemingly insuperable difficulties.\n\nI have mentioned the situation of the 27th Division from October 17th to\n21st, 1918, how they entered the attack with depleted numbers, tired in\nbody and mind, after insufficient rest and with no fresh replacements.\nDay after day their dearest wish was that their relief might come and\nthey might enjoy the often promised rest. They had seen their comrades\nkilled and wounded until a regiment had only the normal number of men\nto equip a company. Yet day after day the orders came for an advance,\nand every day those tired boys advanced. They did what we all considered\nimpossible because they had the morale of good fighting men. They bore\nthe ever-present danger of bursting shells and the sniper's bullet with\nboyish daring and constant success. They labored harder than any worker\nin civilian life, sleeping in the rain, marching, carrying their heavy\nrifles and packs made mercifully light for the occasion, digging in the\nclinging clay of the Somme valley. This, too, they did not gladly, often\nnot willingly, but because it was part of the game, and they were good\nsportsmen and would see it through.\n\nThe peril to morale at the front was nerves. Although it may be hard to\nconceive, the dashing, aggressive soldiers might fall before this\ndanger. Aggravated cases, true neuroses, we called \"shell shock,\"\nslighter ones, \"nerves,\" but the two were the same. The constant noise,\nexertion, hard work, loss of sleep, undernourishment, produced a\npeculiar mental state. Above all, the high nervous tension which was\nnecessary for men to persist in these conditions had its dangers, too.\nBy reason of it the wounded were able to bear more than their ordinary\nshare of suffering, so that we saw constant examples of stoicism at the\nfront. But when the excitement and tension wore off its effect was lost,\nand in base hospitals the soldiers were no better patients than young\nmen in civilian life. When overburdened nerves gave way, the soldier was\ncompletely lost. A chaplain has told me of a long night spent with a\npatrol in front of the lines, not talking with the men but instead\ntrying to hold the top sergeant to his post. The sergeant was a fine\nsoldier, with a splendid record all through the Meuse-Argonne campaign,\nbut that night, in the long vigil, his nerves had given way and the big,\nstolid soldier was trembling with fear. Only constant persuasion and the\nthreat of force held him to his duty, and the next day he had to be\nassigned to work as supply sergeant in order to save the nightly patrol\nfrom panic that would certainly come if the non-com. in command failed\nthem.\n\nThe soldier had a mixed feeling toward battle. The shock of conflict is\nexciting and exerts a sort of fascination. But the excitement was short\nwhile the danger was omnipresent and the work could never be escaped.\nThe soldier regarded war as a sort of deadly game, where the contest\ncalled forth every energy and the stakes were life itself. But battle\ncontains another factor--a compound of work and discomfort. War is nine\nparts sordid labor to one of glorious action. It was mixed with cooties,\nmud, sleeping in the rain, marching all night and lying down under\nartillery fire. It included digging, and the soldier found no more\nromance in digging in at the front than in digging a ditch at home,\nexcept that under fire he dug considerably faster. War involved carrying\na pack, and that became speedily the pet hatred of the enlisted man. As\nthe prisoner dreads the cell in which he is confined, so the infantryman\nfeels toward his pack clinging with its eighty-odd pounds as he trudges\nalong the weary roads. War is a glorious memory now, but it was neither\nglorious nor pleasant to live through.\n\nWhen the troops retired for rest and training, the problem of morale\nbecame reversed at once. Now it became a matter of discipline and drill.\nInstead of danger and discomfort, our trials were work and monotony. A\nhigh type of morale in the rear meant that the men were not absent\nwithout leave, that they worked hard at their drill and became automatic\nin its motions, that they obeyed every rule of discipline, large and\nsmall. Saluting, for example, was very important at the rear; we never\nonce thought of it at the front. This regime was not always easy, though\nat first we could hold out the object of winning the war, as in the\npamphlet on sex education, \"Fit to Fight.\" After the war was over that\nobject no longer remained. But the hard work remained, the kitchen\npolice, the cleaning up of quarters, the carrying of the pack, the\nincessant drill. \"Squads east and west,\" when the fighting was at an end\nand there was no direct use for maneuvers, seemed to the soldiers simply\nmade work. In fact, much of the work imposed on them during this period\nwas actually devised with the special object of keeping them busy and\ntherefore out of mischief.\n\nThe peril of this situation was obvious. It was that the tedium might\ngrow too great and the men yield to the temptations of drink, gambling\nand vice. These would result in disorder, insubordination, time lost\nfrom duty, venereal disease,--any number of possible evils. They would\ndemoralize a unit at the rear as readily as nerves would demoralize it\nat the front. Sexual vice and sexual disease, while statistically not so\ngreat in the army as among the same age groups in civil life, was still\nserious. The different social system of France put temptation directly\nin the way; prostitution was open and licensed, and the women of the\nstreets quick to accost the wealthy foreigners, whose dollar a day was\nso much greater than the pay of the French soldier. At the same time,\nthe French girls of good family did not meet strange soldiers, dance\nwith them, talk to them, as was done in the States. Their whole\nconception of good breeding and of marriage combined to forbid any\ncontact except in the rare case of a proper introduction into the French\nhome. Courteous in showing the stranger his way or telling him the time\nof day, the average Frenchman was in no hurry to introduce foreign\nsoldiers into his family circle unless he had certificates or personal\nintroductions to the particular soldiers. At home the soldier had been\nlionized from the time of his enlistment until his leaving for overseas.\nHe had been entertained, fed, provided with dances, shows and automobile\nrides. The daughters of rich and cultivated families tended canteen or\ndanced with the soldiers. But in France the daughter of a good family\nwent out only with a man she knew, and then strictly chaperoned. Even\nwhen she knew a man personally, a respectable girl would hardly think of\nwalking down the street with him.\n\nThis seclusion of respectable French girls and the conspicuousness of\nthe loose element made many soldiers hold a light opinion of the virtue\nof French women generally. I remember an argument with one of the boys\nwho had just stated that all French girls were careless in their morals.\nWhen pinned down to particulars, he admitted that he had met exactly\nthree French girls beside those who had accosted him on the street. Two\nhad been sisters, at whose home a friend of his had been billeted, and\nwhen he and his friend had wanted to take them to an army vaudeville\ntheir mother had gone along. The third was the daughter of my landlady\nat Montfort, a fine rounded peasant type. On this scanty basis he had\nformed his typical opinions.\n\nThe control of the minutiae of daily life together with the influence\nover the minds of men in the army should have enabled the authorities to\nsuppress vice almost entirely. Unfortunately, this was never\naccomplished. Lectures, severe penalties for disease \"incurred not in\nline of duty,\" and liberal provision for \"early treatment\" all together\ndid not work the miracle. The prophylactic stations for so-called \"early\ntreatment\" directly after exposure were patronized by a number of men,\nbut never by a very large proportion of the number who were certainly\nexposed. The venereal hospitals where sufferers underwent both treatment\nand punishment had their full quota from every division which remained\nlong in back areas, and most divisions left behind as many as two\nhundred and fifty men for further treatment after the thorough\ninspections preceding their departure for home.\n\nDrink was a less serious, though more prevalent danger. The law had\nprevented men in uniform from drinking in the United States; in France\nit forbade only their use of spirituous liquors, and even those were\noften available. So there was a good deal of beer and wine drinking, and\nsome of cognac. The last was apt to result in drunkenness and disorder,\nbut our military authorities had always the power to declare certain\ncafes, which had violated regulations, \"out of bounds\" for Americans,\nand as a last resort the French police would close such a place\naltogether. Gambling was the most prevalent vice of all, and one which\nwas never, to my knowledge, controlled anywhere. It lacked gravity in so\nfar as the soldiers had very little to gamble, and could incur no great\nlosses. But it was always an easy resort to break the monotony of army\nlife in training or rest areas, and always a menace to the type of\nmanhood which we wanted to see among our American fighting men.\n\nThe reliance on penalties as the chief mode of controlling young\nAmericans was fundamentally unsound both in theory and practice. The\nwarnings against sexual vice lost half their effectiveness because they\nwere usually given by company officers, who emphasized the danger of\ndisease and the military penalties rather than the appeal of loyalty or\nself-respect. Medical officers and chaplains were certainly better\nequipped for such special work, although probably no human being and no\nappeal can solve the entire problem.\n\nAll these facts came slowly to the fore within the few months following\nthe armistice, and we were able to observe them very clearly in the 27th\nDivision while in the Montfort area. While we wintered there, from\nNovember 1918 to February 1919, the morale of our troops, which had\nnever weakened at the front even under the most terrible conditions,\nwent down steadily during those three weary months. For one thing, we\nwere constantly expecting orders to leave for home and constantly\ndisappointed. We were inspected and reinspected, drilled and drilled\nagain. Warned not to begin an elaborate program of athletics, education\nor amusement, we worked from week to week and never instituted one-third\nof the work which we had planned and ready. Meanwhile there was the cafe\nand the danger of vice and drink, so the men were kept drilling through\nthe winter rains to keep them busy during the day and make them tired at\nnight. This attempt was neither humane nor possible and had only the\nworst effects.\n\nThe failure with our division brought the possibility of a constructive\nprogram before the higher command of the army, which inaugurated one\njust about the time our division left the area. Large schools were\nstarted in each permanent division in the district, giving both common\nschool and technical branches, with the army university at Beaune as the\nhead of the educational structure. Such a school was established in the\nForwarding Camp, near Le Mans, where I saw it in busy operation.\nAthletic meets were arranged in each division, with larger ones at Le\nMans and other central points for the best men in the separate units.\nMore welfare huts of different agencies were established, with more\ncanteen supplies from the States and more women workers for canteen\nservice and dances. Each division devoted more attention to its \"shows,\"\nusually a musical comedy troupe, with very clever female impersonators\nto make up for the lack of chorus girls. Some of these shows had tours\narranged by the Y. M. C. A. or other agency, and a few of them even had\ngala performances in Paris. Regular religious services and other\nappointments with the chaplains were instituted and advertised, although\nwe had always done this for ourselves in our own units. Leave areas\nwere designated in the most beautiful sections of France, as well as\npermission for a few furloughs in Italy and England. The _Stars and\nStripes_, always a valuable organ as the soldiers' newspaper, became the\nconstant instrument of propaganda to upbuild morale. Finally, the army\ntook over official control of education, entertainment and athletics\nfrom the civilian agencies, designated a Welfare Officer to control them\nall, and asked the agencies formerly in control to cooeperate with the\nnewly appointed officials. All these were steps in the right direction,\nalthough at times such work was partially nullified by the choice of the\nwrong man as Welfare Officer. This was a position which only a\nprofessional educator could fill at all; even an expert could hardly\ninfluence actively a hundred thousand minds at once. Hardly any\nprofessional soldier, business man or engineer could have the breadth of\nview and technical knowledge to approach them. Of course, when army\nregulations prescribed a major for a particular position and only a\nlieutenant was available with the proper training, an untrained major\nwas appointed and the lieutenant left in command of a platoon.\nPromotions were naturally few after the armistice, and the table of\norganization had to be complied with at all costs.\n\nThe _Stars and Stripes_ demands a few words in itself, both because of\nits excellent articles and cartoons and for its unique position as \"the\nsoldiers' newspaper.\" It was a well-written weekly publication, which\ncould command the services of many of the best of the younger writers\nand cartoonists in America. The knowledge that the _Stars and_\n_Stripes_ was semi-official, being published under military censorship,\nmade its news material very influential on morale. Men believed anything\nthey read there about the work of the various divisions, special\ndistinctions, or the date of the homeward troop movement. But that very\nfactor made the articles it published more or less suspected by the men.\nThey knew they were propaganda, written for the benefit of morale, and\nthey therefore read them, but derived much less effect from them than\nwould otherwise have been the case. Still the writers, themselves\nsoldiers, expressed the soldiers' view often enough and clearly enough\nto lend some value even to the suspected material from General\nHeadquarters.\n\nAfter all, amusements, education and athletics were only palliatives in\na confessedly irksome situation. They did not touch the heart of that\nsituation any more than really excellent welfare work satisfies a group\nof employees in civil life who consider themselves underpaid and\noverworked. The essentials of morale were the elements which approached\nthe soldiers' welfare most nearly--food, pay, mail and daily military\nroutine. Army food was notoriously bad, army cooks famous for lack of\nskill. Part of this, like other complaints, lay in the chronic grumbling\nof the soldiers. Obviously, they did not receive the kind of meals that\n\"mother used to make\" or the product of a famous hotel. The food itself\nwas usually of excellent quality but coarse, the menus well balanced but\nmonotonous. This last was the chief grievance and one that was largely\njustified. Most of our food had to be brought overseas in cans, and it\ntook a skillful cook to disguise \"corned willie,\" \"monkeymeat\" or\n\"goldfish\" day in and day out. Yet corned beef, stew and salmon, to use\ntheir civilian names, were staples in the army diet. It became a\nquestion among us officers whether we preferred to drink good coffee,\nruined by army cooks, or the excellently prepared chicory of the usual\nFrench restaurant. I, for one, preferred the British ration as superior\nin variety to that we received after we came into the American area,\nalthough it was normally not as large in amount as the ration of the\nAmerican soldier.\n\nPay and mail were notoriously unreliable in the A. E. F. Pay was regular\nfor officers, of course, who could swear to their own pay vouchers, but\nnot always for enlisted men, who required a service record to have their\nnames put on the pay roll. When a man is a patient in nine hospitals\nwithin four months, we cannot expect his mail to follow him, nor his\nservice record to stay at hand. These grievances were later remedied,\nthe mail through the Main Post Office, the pay question by means of pay\nbooks and supplementary service records. Still, at one time it was by no\nmeans uncommon to meet men just out of the hospital who had received\nneither mail nor pay for three months, or to find a man who had been\nshifted so often from one unit to another that his pay was six months in\narrears. When we remember the little money at hand for any purpose\nwhatever, when we bear in mind the loneliness of these boys so far from\nhome, loved ones, even from common sights and familiar speech, we can\nimagine what a deprivation such troubles brought, and how deeply they\neffected morale. Of course, as I have mentioned before, the soldier\nnever made allowances either for the difficulty of the task or the\ncomparative success with which it was accomplished. The soldier merely\nsuffered and complained.\n\nI shall never forget the incessant complaints about that very necessary\ninstitution, the censorship of letters home. The last hope of the\nsoldier was for glory in the eyes of the people at home. At least he\nwould be a hero to them. But here the censor lifted his terrible shears.\nStories of heroism, true or false, could not be told. Weeks after an\naction the soldier's family might read that he had taken part in it and\neven then the censor might return his letter if he mentioned any\ndetails. For many of the soldiers this was more than annoying; it was\nserious. They were often not educated, had written perhaps three or four\nletters in their lives, and could hardly face the task of writing a\nsecond letter if the first was condemned. In any case no American wanted\nto submit his personal letters for his wife or sweetheart to a superior\nofficer for approval. Add to this the fact that the officer could sign\nfor his own mail without other censorship except the possibility that\nthe letter might be read at the base port, and censorship became another\ngrievance to the enlisted man.\n\nFinally, the greatest factor in morale, good or bad, was that intangible\nbut very real entity, military discipline. The American boy hates to be\nunder authority; to ask for leave to speak to his captain; to request\npermission to go for a few hours' leave after his day's duties are over;\nto address an officer in the third person: \"Is the captain feeling well\nthis morning, sir?\" Most American officers were human enough, with\nlittle of the class feeling of the British army. For that reason the\nsoldier rarely hated his own officers, and often was heard to boast of\n\"my lieutenant\" or \"my captain.\" The soldier merely hated authority in\ngeneral, as represented largely by the necessity to salute any unknown\nofficer whom he might meet. He never understood the lectures about the\nmanliness of saluting or its military necessity; he knew only that it\nwas the sign of authority, to which he was subjected.\n\nPerhaps that is the root of the whole matter of morale. A good soldier\nat the rear was the man who sank his personality and became a unit in\nthe squad. If too strongly defined an individual, he was a marked man;\nhe became company clerk or kitchen police, according to his previous\neducation. The good soldier was the one who acted automatically on\nreceipt of orders, who saluted, said \"Yes, sir,\" turned on his heel and\nseemed at once to be very busy. Even if he had been an executive or a\nlawyer in civil life, the constant drill made an automaton of the\nenlisted man; he sank back into the mind of the crowd, adopted the usual\nopinions in the usual words, and lost for the time being his\npersonality. Drill made for automatic physical reactions to a certain\nset of commands and the temporary cessation of thought. In close-order\ndrill Tom Smith submerged his personality and became \"Number Three in\nthe rear rank.\" He learned to swing about at the proper moment,\nfollowing the man ahead of him, to respond instantly to the word of\ncommand without hesitating for its meaning, to stand and march and\nsalute and obey. That was good for the rear, but at the front we needed\nTom Smith again, and he might forget his place in the line, rush forward\non his own initiative and become a hero. The finest acts were those of\nindividuals acting without orders, the private forming a stretcher party\nof volunteers to go out for the wounded, the corporal reforming the\nplatoon when all the sergeants were disabled and leading them forward.\nThen in the long period after the war Tom Smith had to be lost, for\nNumber Three in the rear ranks was needed again.\n\nThe soldier lived in utter ignorance, not only of general events in the\nworld and the army, but even of the things which would affect himself\nmost closely. The enlisted man never knew a day in advance when he would\nbe transferred to a different post or a different duty, when he would be\npromoted or degraded in rank, when he was to attack the enemy or retire\nfor a rest. Even the things he saw became distorted. A doughboy remarked\nto me just before the battle of the Selle River, \"We're held up by a\nlittle stream twenty feet wide, with Jerry on top of the railroad\nembankment on the other side. If we can just get across that river and\nup that embankment, we'll end the war right there.\" Of course, our\nsuccess three days later did not end the war; it was only part of a\ntremendous program which the private soldier did not envisage at all.\nThe attack on the Selle River was but one of a half-dozen actions\ncarried on simultaneously in Flanders, on the Scheld, at Rheims, in the\nArgonne and on the Meuse. Our attack was made easier because of these\nothers, and they in turn were successful because of ours. The three\nhundred miles of battle-line were all one, and only the broadest\npossible view could give any idea at all of the truth.\n\nThe officer, especially when on the staff, saw things in relation, but\nthe soldier had to work in the dark. He never did understand the rules\nof the great game he was playing. Tactics were nothing to him. He knew\nonly what it meant to march with a heavy pack all night, to rest in the\ndamp cold of dawn when he was too weary to rest at all, to advance under\nfire and to dig in again and yet again. Much as he might later on revel\nin the raw heroism of it all, this arduous labor, blindfolded, left him\na prey to doubt and rumor at the time. Rumors were one of the few foes\nof morale which persisted at both front and rear, because they were the\nproduct of ignorance and in both places ignorance persisted. No man can\nbe quite steady in his duty when his mind is distracted by the countless\nrumors of army life. So far as we had information to dispense, we were\nbuilding up morale, even when the facts were not reassuring. Rumors\nabout going home, being the most desirable, were the greatest menace of\nall. Men would come back from the hospital with half-healed wounds\nbecause the rumor said we were going home at once, and they wanted to go\nalong. Men would take unofficial leave to see Paris before they died,\njust because the latest rumor had it that we were not to leave for\nanother month. Every such disappointment or lapse of duty made the next\nrumor more dangerous and wider spread.\n\nThe morale of the overseas forces described a slow downward curve from\nthe high point at the armistice until the news that the particular unit\nwas going home, when it took an immediate upward bound. During the\ndownward trend of the curve, the men grew to hate the army. The definite\nelements which they naturally resented were emphasized and exaggerated,\nalthough that was hardly necessary. At the same time, they felt immense\npride in their own achievements, and a thorough contempt for\n\"joy-riders,\" as they termed the civilian travelers through France, the\nofficial investigators or representatives of civilian organizations, who\nwitnessed the trenches as if on a sight-seeing party. This pride in\ntheir actual accomplishments, combined with resentment at the military\nsubversion of ordinary civilian standards of life and manhood, was\ncharacteristic of the best minds in the ranks.\n\nThe military system is of necessity heteronomous, while democracy must\nbe autonomous. The very virtues of self-reliance, independence,\nresponsibility, which we most emphasize in civil life, were the ones\nmost actively discouraged among enlisted men. At the same time, the\nmoral influences put upon them were those of compulsion and restraint.\nThe regime for officers was radically different; it demanded\nresponsibility and removed much of the restraint. Hence the tendency of\nthe army system was to produce officers with adequate mental processes\nand soldiers with automatic obedience to any kind of orders. The result,\nnot difficult to foresee, was that the officers had far better minds but\nfar poorer morals than the enlisted men. The officer was responsible for\nhimself; the enlisted man had a number of superiors responsible for\nhim. As a consequence the officer used his mind, the soldier stopped\nusing his. On the other hand, the officer often abused his larger\nliberty, so that some of the officers of the A. E. F. were notorious for\ntheir loose living on the boulevards of Paris and other towns and\nbrought shame upon their more decent comrades and the cause for which\nthey fought.\n\nThe conspicuous difference was not the result of differences in the men\nthemselves, for we had no castes in the American army. Officers and men\ncame from the same stock and from every group. It was the direct\nconsequence of the different type of discipline and control to which\nthey were subjected. The best officers and the best men surmounted it;\nthe worst yielded; the average were affected more or less.\n\nObviously, morale was a loose general term for many actual conditions.\nIt meant one thing at the front, another thing at the rear. It included\nmorals, although sometimes a high state of morale could exist together\nwith many lapses from the moral code. It summed up the general state of\nmind of the troops at any time with regard to the special purpose for\nwhich the troops were just then intended. A study of morale gave insight\ninto many related factors, including that of morality. The young man, as\nwe saw him in the army, had a morality of his own, related closely to\nsport and business, but to neither law nor religion. It is a moral\nstandard--we cannot possibly mistake that--the young man is not in his\nown mind immoral. But it is a standard which makes much of friendship,\nloyalty, fair play, something of honesty, nothing of the special code\nwhich we usually call \"morality.\" It allowed much laxity in sexual\nrelations; it laid no stress at all on obedience to military\nregulations; it had hardly such a word as \"duty.\" Religion to the\nsoldier meant habit, or sentiment, or fear, or longing; it did not mean\na code of morals. The attempt to build up a moral standard on a basis of\nduty to one's country or to one's self was largely inadequate. Courage\nthe soldier recognized, and sincerity and self-sacrifice; he did not\nknow much of duty. This fact was both the cause and the result of\nmilitary discipline, which made duty an external matter of obedience to\na million trivial and arbitrary rules, rather than to a few definite and\noutstanding principles. The young man has a morality of his own in civil\nlife; he had a slightly different, but related morality in the army. It\nwas not the conventional morality of society, which rests upon the\nhistorical standards of the middle-aged. It was a type of morality which\nwe must learn to recognize and understand for both his benefit and that\nof society as a whole.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nTHE MORAL GAIN AND LOSS OF THE SOLDIER\n\n\nThe military system, as I have tried to bring out in the last chapter,\nhad a definite and profound influence on the life and thought of the\nindividual soldier. It was so radically different from civilian life\nthat this influence became all the more striking through contrast. The\nyoung man has certain moral standards and habits in civil life, some of\nwhich became intensified, while others altered in the army. The millions\nof young men who went through the military regime during the war have\nbrought this influence back into civilian life with them, even though it\nis attenuated by environment and although they have largely returned to\ntheir former, pre-military habits. War and danger brought out certain\ncharacteristics and occasioned others. These new reactions of character\nwere not, as the pacifists would have it, all bad; neither were they all\ngood, as was generally proclaimed in patriotic fashion while the war was\ngoing on. Some influences were good and some were bad, while almost\nevery man in the service would necessarily respond to both kinds. The\nmilitary system itself caused or brought to light certain good and bad\ntraits which appeared clearly enough in the average soldier after he had\nbeen in the army even a few months. It may be worth while to develop\nsome of these at a little length, not scientifically nor\npsychologically, but simply and directly as they strike the soldier\nhimself.\n\nWe saw at the front, as the experience of other armies had indicated,\nthat the average man has in him the stuff of which heroes are made. Not\nmerely the farmer or backwoodsman, but the men who followed prosaic city\noccupations, were ready to sacrifice themselves for their comrades and\ntheir country. The barber and the shipping clerk were as frequent\nwinners of the D. S. C. as any others in our huge heterogeneous army.\nHeroism was evoked by the need, by the fact that it was the expected\nresponse, the response of thousands of others. The crowd mind produced\nheroism out of the most unexpected material. War created some of the\nheroism which we saw; it merely evoked some which was already latent,\nready for the call. The stretcher-bearer, exposing himself to the\nseverest fire to carry his precious burden to safety; the battalion\nrunner, bearing his message through the barrage and then coming back\nagain to bring the answer; the machine gunner, carrying his heavy weapon\non his back to an advanced position where he could establish it\neffectively; the infantryman, advancing against machine-gun fire, or\ndigging in under attack from heavy artillery or aeroplanes; the\nengineer, digging away debris or laying bridges in plain sight of the\nenemy, with his rifle laid near by to use in case of an attack--I might\nenumerate hundreds of such duties in which courage, loyalty, and\nendurance were exhibited by men who performed exceptional acts of\nbravery and devotion, volunteering for difficult service or carrying on\nin the face of overwhelming odds. All soldiers were afraid, but in the\nperformance of their duty practically all soldiers learned to overcome\nfear and attend to their jobs in the face of every obstacle and every\ndanger.\n\nWe felt that travel, with its attendant contact with other customs,\nlanguage and people, would broaden our soldiers mentally and tend to\nbreak down the provincialism which has been often noticed in America, as\nwell as in many other countries. Only a small minority of our men were\nequipped, either in knowledge or in attitude, to take advantage of the\nopportunities offered. Museums meant comparatively little to them,\nmediaeval cathedrals not much more, Roman walls or ruins nothing at all.\nScenery did not mean as much as some of us thought it should, forgetting\nthat scenery looks entirely different to a man who rides past it and\nanother who walks through it. Altogether, knowledge of France, England\nand Germany made, on the whole, not for a greater appreciation of\nforeign lands, but instead for a great appreciation of America.\n\nThe fact is that the boys grew homesick. Most of them were only boys in\nyears, and practically all of them were reduced to the boyish level of\nthought by the general irresponsibility, thoughtlessness, and dependency\nof army life. They were like boys in a military school, very often,\nrather than men engaged in the grim business of modern war. To these\nboys absence from home brought a higher appreciation of home. This was\noften a true evaluation, in the face of previous neglect and\nunderestimation; sometimes it may have been a sentimentalizing of a home\nthat had never really meant very much. But in the danger, the monotony,\nand the distance, the soldiers grew to higher appreciation of their own\nhomes and their home-land as well.\n\nTheir complaints were often ridiculous enough. They objected to the\nbackwardness, the lack of sanitation, the absence of bathing facilities\nin the French villages. These were true enough, as far as they went,\nalthough I know personally that they can be matched in many details even\nin prosperous and enlightened America. They objected to the French\nclimate, with the damp cold of its winters, not caring to remember that\ncertain parts of our own Pacific coast suffer from a rainy season, too.\nThis complaint becomes still more valueless when we remember how the\nboys grumbled about the heat of the Texas border, in fact, how soldiers\nnot in action will always find a source of complaint in the weather,\nwhatever kind of weather it may be. As General O'Ryan remarked in his\nfamous definition of a soldier, \"A soldier is a man who always wants to\nbe somewhere else than where he is.\" This restlessness accounts for some\nof the complaints which we are apt to take a bit too seriously. A more\nreal complaint was the language difficulty. Soldier French was a\nwonderful thing, consisting of the names of all ordinary things to eat\nand drink, together with a few common expressions, such as \"toute de\nsuite\" (always pronounced \"toot sweet\"), and \"combien.\" This prevented\neasy communication, even with such French people as were encountered.\nFew of the soldiers had any opportunity to use even their little French\non respectable, middle-class French families, especially not on young\nmen or girls. All these grievances, real and fancied, put the soldier\nout of ease in France and made him appreciate America so much the\nbetter. The sacrifices they were making for America, the service they\nwere rendering her, united with the home-sickness of a stranger in a\nstrange land to increase the devotion and respect of Americans for\nAmerica.\n\nI need not refer especially to the rather mixed gain in religious\nattitude, as I have already devoted a chapter to that subject. I must,\nhowever, repeat one point I mentioned there, the meanings of physical\nsacrifice as these men saw it and practised it in the army. It was the\noutcome of their courage, their dash, their enthusiasm, that when the\ntime of stress came ordinary men offered their lives for their friends\nand their country. The soldier at the front equaled or exceeded the\nforgetfulness of self of the fireman or the life-saver in time of peace.\nThis lesson of self-forgetfulness, of self-sacrifice, was one of the\ngreat impressions made by the war upon the best men it influenced, and\none which touched in its way even the most thoughtless and careless of\nall the soldiers who had their hour at the front.\n\nThis brought out the group solidarity of the American army in stronger\nrelief. The fine thing about morale at the front, as I have outlined it,\nwas the mutual confidence which it called out in every breast. The pride\nin his own company, his regiment, his division, in the American army as\na whole, which held a man to his duty under fire and impelled him to\nresist the almost overwhelming influence of a sudden attack of panic,\nmade for loyalty at the rear as well and formed one basis for the\nwhole-hearted return of the young men into civilian society after the\nwar. Pride in one's division meant also pride in one's state; pride in\nthe United States Army meant pride in the United States. Self-sacrifice,\ndevotion, heroism,--all these were profound lessons for any man, young\nor old, a lesson which American democracy can profitably utilize in the\ndaily humdrum of American life.\n\nIt was surprising how constantly our expectations were disappointed by\nthe actual facts of the men in the service. Most books and articles\nsince the war and all of those before the war were written on a\ntheoretical basis, and every one approached the facts with a theoretical\nview. But the theory was proved wrong in so many instances that I am\nmaking the present study entirely empirical, leaving theory out\naltogether as more of a pitfall than an advantage. For one thing, I had\nexpected war to exert a directly brutalizing influence on the soldier.\nThis was never evident at all except in the actual stress of battle when\nkilling was a daily necessity, and human life, although the most\nvaluable asset of the contending forces, was still held cheaply enough\nto be used up at a terrific rate. Men could not stop there to pity every\ncorpse; they had to save their own lives and at the same time to win the\nwar. But the effect wore off quickly; probably it left no result at all\nexcept on men with a previous tendency to brutality or crime. I remember\nthe thrill of horror which went through Le Mans and the entire A. E. F.\nin April 1919, when a railroad accident occurred near our post and a\ngroup of soldiers and sailors on furlough were injured, some of them\nfatally. We forgot all about the fact that these men had risked death in\nentering the service, that the few of them in this accident were the\nsmallest fraction of a day's toll at the front if the war had continued.\nWe melted in sympathy, and the French population of Le Mans did the\nsame.\n\nThe men were not brutalized, contrary to expectation. Human life was\nheld cheaply under exceptional circumstances and evidently the men felt\nthat they were exceptional. But the men did become accustomed to the use\nof firearms, and those already brutalized were given the knowledge and\nthe means for crimes of violence. The carelessness with which men used\nand flung about all kinds of deadly weapons shocked those of us with a\nsense of responsibility; it was part of their boyish heedlessness in the\nmidst of the fierce game they were playing. They threw their discarded\nrifles in a heap by the first-aid post when they went back to hospital;\nthey even played catch with hand-grenades, sometimes with most serious\nresults. Once I met a pair of Australians out hunting rabbits with their\nhigh-powered rifles, in a place where hundreds of men were passing\nhourly by the much-traveled road. When I remonstrated with them, they\nonly replied, \"Oh, well, we haven't anything else to do. And we know how\nto shoot without hurting anybody.\"\n\nBut with all these real character acquisitions on the part of the men in\nthe service, and with the lack of that brutalizing which many theorists\nhad feared, at the same time certain moral losses were occasioned by the\nmilitary system. I shall not enter into the question of sexual morality\nhere, partly because I have discussed it in the previous chapter, and\npartly because it was not distinctly the product of the army. The sexual\nstandards of the young men in the army were much the same as those of\nyoung men everywhere, with some modifications through discipline. But to\nthe man who has served in any army at any time, the outstanding moral\nweakness of the soldier is his entire disregard of the rights of\nproperty. The sense of property, so strong in civilian life, which is\nimplanted so carefully into the little child, seems lost in the first\nmonth of a man's army life. One brigade headquarters I knew in France\nwas established in a fine chateau, with large grounds surrounded by a\nhigh wooden fence. At the same time, the men of the nearest unit were\nliving in barns and attics, with no light or heat of any kind in their\nquarters. The result was that the fence disappeared, little by little.\nNobody ever saw the culprits, but I had reliable information that the\nmen billeted in that village had all the heat they needed. When we left\nthe area, about half the fence was gone, and I have little doubt it\nvanished entirely during the occupancy of the next division.\n\nI can still hear the indignation of the driver of my \"tin Lizzie\" when\nthe precious lamps were stolen out of our car and we had to drive home\nten miles in the dark. Of course, lamps were scarce, having to be\nshipped from the States, and the thief undoubtedly drove an army car\nlike ours. But a few days later after a visit to the city my driver\nreported back in triumph--he had found another machine parked in a side\nstreet and \"salvaged\" the lights. I tried to make him return them, but\nfor once he proved insubordinate. It was only another army car; the\nother fellow had probably got them the same way; he could not identify\nthe car, anyway. Then came the finishing stroke when we tried the\nlights and found them burned out! The other driver had left them in as a\nblind. My driver felt a sense of personal injury, as though he had been\ndirectly cheated in a legitimate business deal. And practically any\nsoldier would have agreed with him.\n\nThe men \"found\" whatever they needed if it was not issued to them\nproperly, because property had no meaning to them in the army. They\nowned nothing whatever; even their clothes, food and lodging belonged to\nUncle Sam. When their clothes wore out, they were replaced; when the\ncompany's weekly supply of food was eaten up, more was forthcoming.\nRifles fallen into disrepair were exchanged for good ones; shoes were\nsent to the salvage depot to be repaired and then issued to another man.\nEquipment lost at the front or in the hospital was reissued without\nquestion. Therefore the enlisted man felt a community sense of ownership\nrather than a personal one. At the same time, he was constantly in need\nof one thing or another. He needed fire wood, as in the incident of the\nfence, or automobile supplies, as with my driver. The legend even goes\nthat the Australians, famous in their ability to care for their own\nunits, have been known to take an entire field kitchen, with the food\nstill cooking, from a British unit and make a successful escape. I know\nthat I have personally seen a British colonial soldier in a village near\nthe front taking a large mirror with a gilt frame out of a dwelling\nhouse and making off toward his quarters. \"What are you doing with\nthat?\" I asked him. \"Oh, I think we can use it,\" was his unembarrassed\nanswer.\n\nThe soldier learned to disregard law, just as he learned to disregard\nproperty. Discipline meant obedience to constant minute surveillance. It\nmeant getting up at reveille, rolling his blankets in just such a way,\nreporting at roll call, lining up for mess, working at whatever menial\ntasks he might be detailed to do by the sergeant, asking for a pass when\nhe wanted to go to the nearest city, submitting his mail to censorship,\ngetting a day off for sickness only after lining up for \"sick call,\" and\nfinally going to bed at night as soon as the bugle sounded \"taps.\" These\nmen were not trained soldiers, accustomed to such a system; they were\nhealthy American boys in whom this constant subjection to external\ncontrol meant the immediate seeds of revolt. Autonomy meant then the\nevasion of the law. A man could assert his individuality only in such\nways as going absent without leave, wearing a serge uniform (not\nregulation for private soldiers), or gambling away his last month's\nscanty pay. Add to this his constant contact with officers, who, if they\nhad to bear a heavy burden of responsibility and were forced to pay for\nall the things the enlisted man received for nothing, still were not\nsubject to many of the restrictions which he found most galling. The\ntest of manly independence came to be simply \"getting away with it.\" If\na man was caught in an infraction of the rules he had to take his\npunishment; if he was not detected or not convicted he was a successful\nsoldier. This applied, for example, to a trip to Paris, the golden\ndream of every American soldier. For a long time this was strictly\nforbidden, although later three-day leaves to Paris were allowed to a\ncertain number of men. Yet thousands of Americans saw the lovely and\nforbidden city unofficially. They got leave to Versailles, and rode into\nParis daily by street car. They took the wrong train, ostensibly by\naccident, and had to change trains at Paris, dropping out of sight for a\nday or two meanwhile. They borrowed the travel orders of other men and\nused them over, risking detection. Neither the extreme harshness of the\nParis military police nor the menace of their own angry captains could\nkeep them from the enticing adventure. It was their boyishness, combined\nwith their lack of respect for the law itself, that led them into such\ndevious modes of disobedience. \"If you know how, you can get away with\nmurder,\" was the usual apology--further excuse was not needed.\n\nAmong officers a similar tendency showed itself in a different way. The\nofficer was not limited in the most petty ways which irritated the men,\nalthough he also could not take a trip to Paris without proper travel\norders and could not absent himself from duty without special\npermission. But the officer likewise grew to disregard the law\nessentially, even while he obeyed it most carefully in its minutiae. An\nofficer was bound by his signature on written documents. A request\ncoming from the sergeant had to be endorsed by the lieutenant, with his\nreasons if he did not favor granting it. It would then pass on to the\ncaptain, the major, the colonel, and if necessary also the brigadier and\nthe major general. Having passed through military channels for its\nconsideration, it came back again by the same route until it reached the\noriginator. This system made at once for diffusion of responsibility,\nor, to use the familiar army term, \"passing the buck.\" The first man who\napproved the request had no responsibility, as it was approved likewise\nby his superiors; the later endorsers had none, as they had signed it on\nhis recommendation, assuming his knowledge of the facts. Nobody could be\nheld responsible and every one was careful to evade responsibility\nwherever he could. Naturally, this made for endless delays, for\ncomplications interminable when a previous order had to be rescinded for\nany reasons whatever, for evasion in case of difficulty or doubt. It\nmeant fundamentally the disregard of law, expressed by the soldier in\ndisobedience and by the officer in evasion.\n\nThe military regime likewise tended to break down habits of regular\nindustry. During the war there was the alternation of short periods of\nintense and exhausting activity at the front and longer ones of as\ncomplete rest as the men could obtain at the rear. It was a reversion to\nthe life of the savage, busy by spells at hunting or war, with rest and\nlanguor between. The entire exhaustion, physical and mental, after a\n\"spell in the trenches\" demanded complete relaxation afterward, while\nthere was always a little necessary work in the way of drill,\nreequipment and inspection. After the war was over, the drill went on in\nstill larger doses but without the incentive of returning to the\ntrenches again afterward. This alternation of work and rest together\nwith the general rebellion against routine, broke down the habit of\nconsistent work which is built up with such effort and such inducements\nin civil life. Boys do not want to work until they are taught to do so\nand given inducements in the form of money and the things money will\nbuy. But the soldiers, so boyish in their life and their feelings, had\nfew such inducements given them. Their universal experience after\nleaving the army was that it took a tremendous effort of will to return\nto the routine and responsibility of a civilian occupation.\n\nExceptions existed, of course, to every generalization in this chapter,\nas they do to any generalization of any kind. But the exceptions\nspeedily lifted themselves out of the ranks by promotion, and were\ntherefore covered by the different influences on the officers and the\nhigher ranks of non-commissioned officers. And I feel that even these\nexceptional men who retained their respect for law and property, their\nhabits of regular industry, did so only in comparison with the general\nbreak-down, that even they felt a certain loosening of the standards\nwhich they had possessed in civilian life.\n\nArmy life developed a new series of moral values and moral reactions. It\nbrought out virtues which were latent or non-existent in civil life; it\nreduced others to impotence. It produced love of country, of home, and\nof God; it brought forth courage, loyalty, self-sacrifice, the extreme\nof heroism, in such numbers and such variety that they seemed\ncommonplace. It did not brutalize any who were not very ready for such a\nprocess. But at the same time, it destroyed the citizen's respect for\nlaw and order, his respect for property, his habit of hard and\npersistent work. It made him, for the time being, a lazy hero; a\njovial, careless, and lovable lawbreaker. It brought out exactly the\nqualities which are least necessary in civil life, and injured those\nmost necessary; it took the student, the workingman, the farmer, and\nmade of him the doughboy. Army life was opposed directly to the whole\ntenor of democracy, the regime where men control themselves, where they\nwork through ambition and desire for success, and where they strive to\naccumulate property of their own, at the same time respecting the law\nand the property of others. Army life meant a break in the lives of\nmillions of young Americans, an interruption of the steady development\nof their characters and habits, a reversal of their tendencies and a\npostponement of their ambitions.\n\nI feel that it is a great evidence of the essential soundness of\nAmerican manhood that these millions have returned to civil life, in\nmost cases to their former circles and their former occupations, with so\nlittle difficulty. Society helped them at the moment by the splendid\nreception home, by the plaudits, the speeches, and the parades. It\nhelped them also to obtain positions and then left them to find\nthemselves. Fortunately, after a brief transition most of them did find\nthemselves, and the ex-soldiers to-day are back in every type of work as\nbefore. The former captain may sell you a suit; the holder of a D. S. C.\nmay wait on you at the restaurant. They have overcome the restlessness,\nthe carelessness, the thrill; they are civilians again. But here and\nthere the seeds fell on different soil; here and there a former soldier\nhas not found himself again. We see him most often among the wounded\nand gassed, who cannot fit into industry so easily, and whose sufferings\nhave often affected their mentality and always their point of view.\nAmerica has wasted criminally precious years of these young ruined\nlives, in not bringing to them instantly the full care and service of a\ngrateful nation. On the other hand, industry has made little effort to\nabsorb our soldiers; I have seen men with trades selling fruit from\npush-carts because there was no other work at hand. I have seen a\njobless boy, honestly trying to make a little money by selling trinkets\nin the street and driven away by a patriotic store-keeper, who felt that\nhe had done his duty by buying Liberty Bonds and need not bother about\nthe man who had fought his battles for him. The soldier who cannot\nreturn to civil life is a rare exception, but he is an exception caused\nin an unstable youth by our military or our industrial system. Our\nnation, which profited by that army, must remember for good every\nweakest individual whose sweat and blood poured forth to make that army\ngreat.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nTHE JEWISH SOLDIER AND JUDAISM\n\n\nDuring the war we were so stunned by its suddenness and vastness that we\nfelt it would shatter all former systems of philosophy, that men would\nneed a new philosophy of life after the war, just as they did after the\nRenaissance or the epoch-making discoveries of Darwin. This opinion,\nnatural enough at the time, was certainly exaggerated. The war did not\nshatter all ideals; it did not create any new ones except the wave of\nspiritualism at present so wide-spread. But it did shift emphases,\nexposed the hollowness of many easy beliefs, and implanted new ideas in\nminds which otherwise might not have been ready for them. The soldier\nreally presents the typical reaction to the war, while the civilian\nshows a milder type of influence and a smaller degree of change. The\nrevaluation of values which is really demanded to-day is nothing so\nfundamental as we thought at the time. It is chiefly psychological, that\nwe shall understand what is in the mind of the soldier, and by that\nmeans reach an understanding of the effect of the war on society as a\nwhole. The world contains in diluted form those same influences which\nshow so distinctly on these young men. The problem of evil is neither\ngreater nor less than it was before the war; the problem of life and\ndeath is no different; the problem of conduct has not changed. But\ncertain phases of each of these problems have come very strongly to the\nattention of the world; some of them have been branded into the\nconsciousness of the soldier. Just as the soldier has a viewpoint toward\nAmerican ideals, which America would do well to heed in working out her\nprograms for the era after the war, so the Jewish soldier has his own\nviewpoint toward Judaism, which all who are interested in our people and\nour religion need to understand and utilize for the best development of\nour religious programs in the days that are just ahead.\n\nIt is hard to call the soldier a progressive in religion when he had so\nfew theories about the matter. But he was certainly not a\ntraditionalist. Religious ideas and practices had to satisfy his\nimmediate needs or they had no meaning to him at all. This covered all\ncant words, all ready-made formulas, whether as ancient as the Talmud or\nas comparatively recent as reform Judaism. The answer of a twelfth\ncentury Jew of Spain or a nineteenth century Jew of Germany were on an\nequality to him; if either solved the problems of a young American at\nwar it was acceptable. The soldier was willing to accept old answers to\nnew questions if they were cogent; on the other hand, he was quite as\nwilling to consider a new and revolutionary theory. He possessed that\nrare attribute, the open mind; on the narrow but keen basis of his own\nmental experience he grasped and estimated soundly the new ideas and the\nold.\n\nThe soldier enjoyed ceremonies that reminded him of home and childhood,\nbut he regarded them largely as pleasant memories. However deep a\nmeaning the symbols might possess, the soldier had not the background to\ngrasp it. The symbols did not stand for enough to solve the problems of\nhis immediate life. In the same way, theological concepts, however\nliberal, meant nothing to him practically. The liberal theology of\nreform Judaism might have appealed to the mass of the Jewish soldiers if\nthey had been interested in it and had made an effort to understand it.\nAs it was, liberalism in theology meant exactly nothing to them. They\nwere not interested in theological problems; they did not care what\none's opinion might be about the literal inspiration of the Bible or\nabout the coming of the Messiah. The liberalism which expressed itself\nconstantly among the soldiers, and which they brought back with them\ninto civil life, was different from all this. Granting your liberalism\nor your conservatism in regard to beliefs and ceremonies, the soldier\nwanted to know your attitude toward other human beings. The liberalism\nhe wanted was social and humanitarian. On this plane he had his being.\nThis was the type of problem which interested him and which he could\nunderstand. The soldier felt too often that the churches and synagogues\nwere dominated by capital, by a narrow social class which discriminated\nagainst him. Among Jewish soldiers, many felt that the religious ideas\nthey might accept were expressed in rich reform temples, where they\nthemselves would not be acceptable or would not feel at home. On the\nother hand, they did not feel at home in the little orthodox synagogues\nwhere their fathers offered up their daily prayers. They did not\nunderstand the Hebrew ritual uttered there, nor the devotional attitude\nwhich was there expressed.\n\nBut all this is not reaching directly the synagogue itself. The young\nmen, the former soldiers, are not the trustees of our temples and\nsynagogues; they are not a majority of our members; they are not often\nto be found in the pews, where we might see their response to a\nparticular service or a particular sermon. If we are not very careful,\nthe churches and synagogues will lose entirely the inspiration of their\nyouthful vigor and find themselves tied entirely to the generation which\nhas passed into middle age and is becoming old. We must call to the\nyoung men in the voice of youth, with the viewpoint and on the plane\nwhich they understand and on which they may respond. That means that we\nmust be willing to accept new conclusions to new problems if these\nconclusions seem to fit the new times. That means also that we must have\nan aggressive attitude toward social and economic problems. This alone\ncan make liberalism religious and make religion concrete, applicable to\nthe needs of the latest era, the era after the world war. Without it,\nreligion will remain moribund, liberalism irreligious. Religious bodies\nmust give an equal hearing to both the conservative and the radical,\nmust show a definite platform of religious and moral work on which the\ntwo can unite. That was done during the war. All groups in American\nJewry, orthodox, conservative and reform, were associated in the Jewish\nWelfare Board and still work together on the Joint Distribution\nCommittee for the relief of Jewish war sufferers. All groups in American\nlife, Jew and non-Jew alike, met and worked together in the United War\nWork campaign, to care for the soldiers in our emergency. But the young\nmen, no longer soldiers, need us as badly now, while we, the churches\nand the synagogues, need them more than ever, with their new experience\nand their new-found manhood. What they need and what we need, too, is\nthat we learn to cooperate on a common platform of action for their\nbenefit now. If we want them, if we want to be at one with them, we must\nhave a social program, a liberal attitude to life and especially to its\nmost immediate economic problems, a willingness to sink differences of\nopinion that we may meet for practical effort and genuine progress.\n\nThe boys in the service became largely socialized through the\ntremendous, constant work of the welfare agencies. They felt the value\nof the Y. M. C. A. or other welfare hut, not only for the\nentertainments, dances and canteen, but just as much as a center for the\nsoldier community, a place to write, to read, to play games, to meet\ntheir friends. Since their return they have turned to such institutions\nas the Y. M. C. A., the Y. M. H. A. and the rest, to find the club life,\nthe community spirit, which they had in the welfare hut in camp or city\nat home and abroad. This need of the young men for a social center and a\nsocial life is a common need of all America. Every village needs a\nsocial center to further its growth into a finer culture and a more\nunited citizenship. Every Jewish community large enough to have a little\nsocial life of its own needs a community center where that life can\nflourish and be guided in desirable and constructive channels. The\nexpansion of the Jewish Welfare Board to join and assist the activities\nof the National Council of Young Men's Hebrew and Kindred Associations\nis a logical one, growing out of the similar needs of the same young men\nin war and peace. The furtherance of social centers for Jewish\ncommunities, for other groups of citizens who possess a common heritage\nor common background, and for a whole town where the town is not too\nlarge, is a piece of work in which the soldiers will participate and\nwhich their very existence among us should suggest to the rest of the\ncommunity. The return of the soldier may assist us more than we expect\nin socializing the Jewish community. The social spirit we once showed in\nhis behalf, the social education we gave him while in the service, will\nreturn to benefit us all if we convert the two into Jewish social life.\nSuch a socializing will cut across congregational or sectional lines,\nacross lines of birth and wealth, and unite the Jewish community in\nAmerica, just as the same process will eventually, if carried far\nenough, weld together all the divergent social forces of America itself.\n\nThe need for personal religion at the front was a temporary need, or\nrather a temporary expression of a universal human yearning. It is now\nalmost forgotten by the boys themselves, certainly by the church and the\nsynagogue. Beside the liberal and the social demands of the day, there\nexists this mystical longing to be sure of God, to know for a certainty\nthat He will protect His dear ones. This universal and eternal need was\nfelt for the time by our men in immediate danger, in thankfulness, in\nmourning. Having discovered it once, they still feel it when the\noccasion comes. Here, however, there seems little likelihood of their\ncontribution being accepted. The union of the social and mystical\nelements, even at different times and for different occasions, seems\nmore than any human institution can accomplish. If the soldier, in tune\nwith the urge of the age, demands a social and a liberal response from\nthe synagogue, he may get it in a large number of cases. The mystical\nelement he will not ask for, and his inarticulate mood, now hardly\nevident, will certainly evoke no response.\n\nOne thing certainly the young men feel, which American Judaism is\naccepting from them. While the young Jew is wholly sympathetic to\nZionism, he hardly ever feels that Zionism is the center or the\nconclusion of the Jewish problem. Zionism, as a movement, has brought to\nfruition much of the latent love of the young Jew for his people and his\nreligion. But the Jewish soldier, or the same boy as a civilian, is not\ninterested chiefly in solving the economic or the cultural problems of\nPalestine. He responds also to the similar problems among the Jews of\nAmerica. Zionism is not enough for him; he must have Judaism as well. He\nand all of us are compelled to confront the spiritual and moral problems\nof the new world after the war.\n\nThe young man does not know, and the synagogue does not always show him,\nthat the very things he demands most urgently are inherent in Judaism,\nespecially in those great prophets whose words still ring forth with a\nyouthful fervor. The unfaltering search for new truth, the recognition\nof the poor and the weak, the unity of all groups in the community, the\ntriumphant search for God and finding of God--all these the young Jew\nwants and the prophets have given us. This aspect of the problem, then,\nbecomes one of leadership, to interpret our Judaism in terms which\nexpress the life of the new day and to show the young men that their\ndearest longings are part of the ancient Jewish heritage. The antiquity\nof the prophetic summons is no disadvantage to the young men if it\nanswers their personal need. It is of the greatest advantage to the\nsynagogue in responding to the call of the great days after the war.\nThose ancient responses to the errors and crimes of mobs and despots in\nthe Orient contain principles whose vitality is not impaired by the\npassage of time. It needs but the skill and the courage to apply them\nagain, as in prophetic times, to the western world in the twentieth\ncentury.\n\nWar gave the world a new angle of vision on life and death, on good and\nbad. The deepest impress of this new viewpoint is on those men who were\nthemselves at the front, who underwent the most extreme phase of it in\ntheir own persons, but some traces have spread throughout the entire\nwestern civilization. America must realize it as Europe does; Judaism\nand Christianity alike are entering, for good or bad, a new period. The\nworld has changed in some respects; we who see the world have changed\nfar more. In facing the future, with its political, its social, its\nmoral problems, we need a new fullness of insight into the young men\nwhose lives have changed and whose souls expanded overnight, even though\nthey remain in externals the boys they were. We need a new intellectual\ncontent, covering not only the new map of Europe and Asia, but also the\nnew ideas and ideals which swept the world for a time, as though they\nwere to be eternal. Above all, we must have complete honesty in facing\nthe thrilling challenge of the immediate future. We do not need a new\nform of Judaism any more than we need a new type of government in\nAmerica. We are confronted by the demand to adapt Americanism and\nJudaism to the changing demands of a changing era, to find among the\ntemporary and evanescent elements in both those things which have\npermanent usefulness for any demand and any era. We need ideals of the\npast, indeed, but only such ideals as have survived the past, as apply\nfully to the present, as will aid in building up a future of promise and\nachievement for the Jew. Judaism is on trial to-day. If we answer the\nneed of the young man, he will be the loyal, active Jew for to-day and\nto-morrow. If we ignore him, whether through uncertainty, ignorance or\npride, he will not come to us and we shall not be going after him.\nJudaism needs the young man; it needs equally his great ideals, social\nand mystical as well. The test will result in a finer and more effective\nfaith only if we respond to it bravely and honestly, in the very spirit\nof the soldier himself.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nTHE JEWISH SOLDIER AND ANTI-SEMITISM\n\n\nDuring the war we felt that prejudice between men of different groups\nand different faiths was lessening day by day, that our common\nenthusiasm in our common cause had brought Catholics, Protestants and\nJews nearer together on a basis of their ardent Americanism. Especially\nwe who were at the front felt this in the first flush of our\ncooeperation, our mutual interest and our mutual helpfulness. After you\nhave stood beside a man in the stress of front-line work, have shared a\nblanket with him, have seen him suffer like a hero or die like a martyr,\nhis origin, his family and his faith become less important than the\nmanhood of the man himself. More than once I have said, talking to\nsoldier audiences of Jewish or of mixed faith: \"After this war no man\ncan knowingly call the Jew a coward again. If you ever hear such a\nstatement, you can be sure that our detractor is not an honest bigot, as\nmay have been the case in the past; he is either ignorant or malicious.\"\n\nWe knew that and our comrades knew it. The men at the front knew very\nlittle about the whole-hearted participation of every section of our\nvast population, Jew and non-Jew together, in the campaigns for\nproduction, Liberty Bonds, the United War Work campaign, and all the\nrest. That record is a permanent one and is known to every man who did\nhis duty in \"the rear lines\" back in the United States during the war.\nBut those who served overseas know the record the Jew made for himself\nat the front, his promotions, his decorations, his woundings and his\ndeaths. They know that differences of religion and race counted not at\nall in the American army, that our heroes and our effective, able\nsoldiers came from all religions and all races. With what high hopes we\nentered the war; with what fine fervor we saw it end! We felt that our\nefforts had insured something more of liberty for the oppressed of all\nthe world, for Czech and Armenian, Alsatian and Belgian, Pole and Jew.\n\nPerhaps the greatest disappointment of all to the fighters and the\nsufferers has been the survival and the occasional revival of the old\nhatreds in a more intense form. I am thinking of the many national and\ngroup hatreds and antagonisms which have tormented the world in the last\nyears, and especially of one of them, that against the Jews. The\noppression of the autocratic regime of the Czar has been carried on by\nthe free nation of Poland; the pogroms of the Black Hundred have been\nrevived in the Ukraine, where the slaughter of war was doubled by the\nslaughter of peace. Hungary has seen its \"white terror,\" where Jews were\nmurdered as Bolshevists and Bolshevists as Jews. Austria and Germany\nhave seen a strengthening of the political anti-Semitism of pre-war\ntimes, here blaming the Jews for beginning the war, and there for ending\nit. Finally the movement has been carried over into the freest and most\nintelligent of nations, and some apologists for it have appeared even\nin England and America. Here the Anti-Semites can work by neither\npolitical nor legal means, but through a campaign of slander they strive\nto weaken the morale of the Jew and injure his standing before the mass\nof his fellow citizens.\n\nI shall not turn aside to deal, even for a moment, with the mass of\naccusations against the Jew, trivial or grave as the case may be. They\nhave been adequately answered by Jew and non-Jew, especially in the\naddress on \"The 'Protocols,' Bolshevism and the Jews,\" by ten national\norganizations of American Jews on December 1, 1920, and the subsequent\nprotests against anti-Semitism by a distinguished group of non-Jewish\nAmericans, notably President Woodrow Wilson, former President William\nHoward Taft and William Cardinal O'Connell. The only one of these\naccusations with which I can properly deal in this place, and one on\nwhich my fellow-soldiers will agree with me in every detail, is the\nrevival of the ancient slander against the patriotism and courage of the\nJew. We are reading, not for the first time in history, but for almost\nthe first time in the _English_ language, that the Jews are not patriots\nin their respective nations, that they all have a super-national\nallegiance to a Jewish international conspiracy, that their real loyalty\nis to this other group within and above the state, even to the extent of\ntreachery or anarchy against their own governments. We feel the\ndisgrace, the pathos of such a charge just after the war when Jews died\nwith non-Jews that America might be safe, at a time when Jews even more\nthan non-Jews are enduring the dread aftermath of war, the famine, the\npoverty and the epidemics, in Eastern and Central Europe. It is the\nsort of charge which only facts can answer, the kind of facts which are\npresent in this book, as in every official or personal story of the war\nby men who took a personal part in the war. Prejudice is too largely the\nproduct of those who gained by the war but did not personally enter the\nranks. The men who know, the men who fought together and bled together,\nhave a different story.\n\nAmerica has, in fact, too much fairness as well as too much humanity, to\nlisten to any such movement of partisan hatred or bigotry. I quote the\nstatement of over a hundred distinguished \"citizens of Gentile birth and\nChristian faith,\" referred to above:\n\n\"The loyalty and patriotism of our fellow citizens of the Jewish faith\nis equal to that of any part of our people, and requires no defense at\nour hands. From the foundations of this Republic down to the recent\nWorld War, men and women of Jewish ancestry and faith have taken an\nhonorable part in building up this great nation and maintaining its\nprestige and honor among the nations of the world. There is not the\nslightest justification, therefore, for a campaign of anti-Semitism in\nthis country.\"\n\nIn this connection, we can recall the words written by Theodore\nRoosevelt, at that time President, in 1905, on the occasion of the 250th\nanniversary of the first landing of Jews in what is now the United\nStates:\n\n\"I am glad to be able to say that while the Jews of the United States\nhave remained loyal to their faith and their race traditions, they are\nengaged in generous rivalry with their fellow-citizens of other\ndenominations in advancing the interests of our common country. This is\ntrue, not only of the descendants of the early settlers and those of\nAmerican birth, but of a great and constantly increasing proportion of\nthose who have come to our shores within the last twenty-five years as\nrefugees reduced to the direst straits of penury and misery. In a few\nyears, men and women hitherto utterly unaccustomed to any of the\nprivileges of citizenship have moved mightily upward toward the standard\nof loyal, self-respecting American citizenship; of that citizenship\nwhich not merely insists upon its rights, but also eagerly recognizes\nits duty to do its full share in the material, social and moral\nadvancement of the nation.\"\n\nIt would be beside the issue to refer to the Jewish participation in\nAmerican life during the past, if that also had not been brought up as\nan accusation. But the records exist, and the facts are conclusive. In\nthe American revolution forty-six Jews fought under George Washington,\nout of the little Jewish population of about two thousand in the United\nStates at that time. The leading Jews of New York and Newport left those\ncities because they were patriots and would not carry on their business\nunder British rule. Haim Salomon, the Jewish banker of New York and\nlater of Philadelphia, was among those who rendered the greatest service\nin financing the infant nation. In the Civil War ten thousand Jewish\nsoldiers of whom we to-day possess the records served in the Union and\nConfederate armies. Each generation of immigrants has been most eager to\nlearn the English language and American ways, to take advantage to the\nfull of American liberty and opportunity, to make a home for their\nfamilies in a free land and to help that land maintain its freedom. The\nWorld War was for the Jews, as for all Americans, simply the\nculmination, bringing out most strongly the high lights in American\nlife. Heroes and slackers, loyal and disloyal, showed themselves in\ntheir true colors during the war. And the Jew, like all Americans,\nshowed himself in this crisis loyal to America. The Jewish record stands\non a par with the best record of any group of American citizens, of any\nchurch or any race. Jews of Russia, whose only contact with their native\ngovernment had fostered hatred and distrust, flocked to the colors in\nAmerica. Jews of American birth, like all citizens of American birth,\ndid their full duty for their country.\n\nOn this point again, my own facts, clear as they are, need not stand\nalone. I can quote Major General Robert Alexander, who commanded, in the\n77th Division, the largest group of Jews in any unit of the American\nExpeditionary Forces: \"I found that Hebrew names on the Honor Roll of\nthe division were fully up to the proportion that they should have been;\nin other words, the Hebrew boy paid his full share of the price of\nvictory. When the time came for recommendations to go in for marks of\ndistinction which we were able to give, I found there again that the\nnames of the Hebrews were as fully represented on that list as the\nnumbers in the division warranted, by long odds.\"\n\nTo-day the Jewish soldier, no longer a soldier or a hero, but still a\nJew and an American, appeals to the American people. Will they suffer\nsuch a propaganda, he wonders, such an attack on him and on his\nbrothers who still lie overseas, in their American graves on foreign\nsoil? Will they tolerate for a moment such a venomous and false attack\non the defenders of their nation, on any group, small or large, of the\nboys who rallied to the defense of democracy? In the army overseas we\nfelt that prejudice was a thing of the past, that only in ignorance or\nmalice could the old serpent lift its head again. To-day, with all the\nnewer bitterness, we feel the same. We know that our soldier comrades\nare loyal still, that America is still America, that as we have once\ndefended her we need not now muster our arguments or records to defend\nourselves against her. If the Jew ever needed justification, he surely\nneeds it no longer to-day. The Jewish soldier has once for all made\nanti-Semitism impossible among the men who served America in arms, and\nwho still in days of quiet continue to serve and save their country.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes\n\nObvious punctuation errors repaired.\n\nDiacritics have be made consistent throughout the text.\n\nHyphens removed from \"Where[-e]ver I went\" (page 8), \"looked like\nside[-]streets\" (page 11), \"a complete prayer[-]book\" (page 18), \"an\nevery[-]day matter\" (page 147).\n\nHyphens added to \"new war-time societies\" (page 3), \"miles by side-car\"\n(page 70), \"private soldier in war-time\" (page 145), \"their new-found\nmanhood\" (page 209).\n\nUnchanged spellings: \"Ausies\", \"B'nai B'rith\" but \"Brith\" elsewhere.\n\nPage 6: \"cemetary\" changed to \"cemetery\" (hospital and cemetary).\n\nPage 10: \"new born\" changed to \"newborn\" (see my newborn son).\n\nPage 34: \"devasted\" changed to \"devastated\" (villages were devastated).\n\nPage 35: \"conspicious\" changed to \"conspicuous\" (village had a\nconspicuous).\n\nPage 36: \"experiencd\" changed to \"experienced\" (experienced a queer\nsensation).\n\nPages 57, 59: \"accomodations\" changed to \"accommodations\" (separate\naccommodations, living accommodations).\n\nPage 75: \"excellant\" changed to \"excellent\" (excellent cooeperation).\n\nPage 78: \"shown\" changed to \"shone\" (shone directly upon).\n\nPage 86: \"Fredman\" changed to \"Friedman\" (Samuel Friedman).\n\nPage 90: \"if\" changed to \"of\" (in the interests of).\n\nPage 110: \"Cemetarial\" changed to \"Cemeterial\" (Cemeterial Division of\nthe War).\n\nPage 117: \"Herschovitz\" changed to \"Herschkovitz\" (Herschkovitz was the\nonly man).\n\nPage 124: \"ocasion\" changed to \"occasion\" (occasion of a further).\n\nPage 126: \"grenades\" changed to \"grendates\" (throwing grenades).","title":"A Jewish Chaplain in France","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":63577}