Republican farmer., 1918-11-08
THREE AMERICANS THRILLED FRENCH
 OF THEAUC0URT
Villagers Were Hiding in Cellars When Yankee Sol
 diers Arrived.

With the American Forces in France, Nov. 6-(Associated Press)- It was three American privates who gave the French civilians of the Ger man occupied village of Thiaucourt the greatest thrill of their lives. For four years they had been waiting and then the Americans came When the three privates-an ad- vance guard of sWarms oI other 1 Americans in their wake-swung in 70 the war-torn village of Thiaucourt not a soul was in the streets. But 1 within a few minutes news spread among the seven hundred civilians that the Americans were there and men and women and children came in droves from cellars where they had been hiding in terror for two days and nights. And from other eel lars and dugouts there came six hun 1 dred German soldiers who were Ge- 1 lighted with the idea of giving up. The offensive of the first Ameri-
 can army, which wiped out the St Mi hiel salient, began on a Thursday morning and it was Saturday after noon when the weary Americans | reached Thiaucourt, hungry and fa- tigued from fast walking in their eagerness to keep pace with the flee
 ing Germans.
 | As the Americans poured into the village and the French realized more and more that again Thiaucour1 had
 come into her own men stood in the streets and cried openly and women
 sat about on doorsteps and bits of
 wreckage caused by shells and wept
 until near exhaustion. And in the
 confusion the children cheered but
 even some of them, the older ones
 realizing what it all meant, cried too
 and kissed the hands of the officers
 and men.
 What food they had on hand the
 French turned over to the Ameri-
 cans, the villagers insisting upon the Americans taking all they wanted of what they had So in the streets and
 in the houses, some of them occupied
 only a few hours previously by Ger
 man officers and men, the Americans made themselves at home, for a short
 breathing spell, and the French pop i ulation of the village endeavored to satisfy the appetites of their deliver 1 CTS.
 From the time the Germans reach |
 until a few days after the village had
 been retaken by American troops the
 civilians were entirely without fresh
 meat of any kind excepting now and i then a chicken or a rabbit which
 were raised in cellars without the | knowledge of the Germans All the cattle in the region of Thiaucourt
 were taken by the Germans, but COWS
 being left to furnish milk for babies. During the four years occupation by the Germans none of the civilians was allowed to leave the town. How
 ever, on one or two occasions individ
 uals were permitted to visit a nearby
 village to attend the funeral of rela-
 lives, accompanied by soldier guard.
 ultaneously. Then ensues continu- ous crashing of the great cannon, and
 through the c1amor ond tremendous chatter come the sucking hiss of IF a hydraulic pressure and the faint hoi- Iow-sounding voices shouting orders from the working chamber of the laundering monsters.
 From time to time the men in the gun-house shout down scraps of in formation. First ship, on fire an
 sinking fast" Our last shot fetched
 away for'a'd smokestack of third
 ship" Flagship sank a big cruiser
 But, apart from such items of news
 the men in the magazines and shell
 rooms know no more of how things Igo in the fight and on their own ship than the man in the moon-