The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-09-19
FRANCE "ALL IN"
when u. S. WENT
into WORLD WAR
She Was Ready To Make Peace
Chase DOster Says.
Former TOpekan Writes OF
Conditions in Europe.
A LIEUTENANT COLONEL NOW
He Is Returning to America To
Take New Command.
Conscientious Directors Are
Not Excused in France.
Former TOpekan Writes OF
Conditions in Europe.
A LIEUTENANT COLONEL NOW
He Is Returning to America To
Take New Command.
Conscientious Directors Are
Not Excused in France.

Information that Chase Doster. son
of , former Kansas Supreme Court
Judge Frank Doster, has been pro-
NOTED from the rank of major with
the Pershing expedition to that of
heqtenant-colonel was received in To-
peka today in a letter written by Col
onel Doster to Maj. A. NJ. Harvey. To-
pelxa attorney. The letter stated that
Doster is now on his way back to
America to enter a regiment in this
country.
Doster is we'll known in Kansas. He
enlisted as major in the Twenty-Sec-
ond Kansas infantry at the outbreak
of the Spanish American war and was
a fellow officer with Harvey in that
regiment AT the close of the war he
entered the regular army
His letter in part follows:
Il am now on my way back to the
United States a lieutenant colonel in
one of the new regiments-just what
regiment or where l go 1 do not yet
know and will not until my arrival in
New York.
Il was playing the role of professor
in the training camp at Fort Smelling
when 1 received orders to join my
regiment at Hoboken. There l found
mob not much more military than
when we led our gallant Twenty-sec-
ond on Washington.
Companies Enlarged
Companies had been increased
from seventy-two to two hundred men
a few days before leaving Douglas,
Arlz.. and while they all had uniforms
few of them had ever seen a gun be-
fore and some didn't know their
names or didn't have any. We were
hustled on board ship that wasn't
yet fitted up and nobody was allowed
to leave the ship except the officers,
for fear someone would tell the Ger
mans we were coming, altho the la
borers who loaded the ships were
North German Lloyd employees and
only German was spoken at the docks.
we were fourteen days at sea and
had few submarine scares but they
all proved false alarms, altho l under
stand Mr. Daniels did report a great
victory over the subs. We saw none
in our section, altho one of the other
sections claimed to have sunk sub.
l neverrfauld find anyone who had
actually seen one.
when we arrived in port at France
we saw our first Germans-hundreds
of them-but they were all prisoners
and were employed in Fixing up our
environments. After about two weeks
at the port town we went to our train
ing camp in Lorraine, about fifty
miles behind the line.
Visited War Front.
just before leaving L VISITED the
front line trenches and saw how civ
ilized Cd warfare is conducted There
wasn't much doing on that particular
front. but l learned to flatten out
when the big ones came screaming
along.
From my talks with French Off
GERS ! gather that they were about ali
in before we declared war and were
ready to declare a German peace.
Now they have hopes of getting the
enemy out of France and getting back
Alsace and Lorraine. 1t has been a
terrible drain on their resources es-
pecially in the way of men. All men
up to include those of forty-seven
years have been modified, even the
conscientious DIRECTORS if they had
any, and those who could do anything
at all were included
The women do all the work-har-
vest the grain and plough the fields
and are making sacrifices no one
thought a woman could make France
Is q beautiful country, but gay Paree
is no longer gay-it is sad and the
life as gone out of her.
~ came thru Paris and London on
my way back. Was in the last Lon
don air raid, or at least it was the
laSfs " hen i left there