The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1918-02-01

B, Abbeville, 8. g.
irresistible thing, and they said to US
frankly, it will cheer us; it will cheer
our people, if you send over some OF
your troops.
ave did send some troops.
Pro6ted by Example.
"At that time we had q choice.
We could have sent over, as Great
Britain, our regular army, and in a
very short preparation have put it
into action and suffered exactly what
Great Britain with her Contemplate
little army as it was called hy their
adversaries. Our army would have
given as good an account Of itself
as the British army did, but it would
have been destroyed like the Brit
ish army, and there would have been
no nucleus on which to build this
new army that was to come over
little later, and it was deemed wiser
to send over regular division, but
not to send over our whole regular
army at that time.
"Then what happened was that
the regular division went over and
the people of France kissed the hens
of their garments as they marched
up the streets Of Paris; the old vet
erans, wounded in this war, legless
or armless, stumping along on crut-
ches, perhaps, as they went up the
streets of Paris with their arms
around the necks of American SOL
diers. Not a single man in that
division was unaccompanied by vet
eran. America had gone to France
and the French people were filled
with sense Of gratitude and hope
fulness that had never been in them
before.
Bound by Stronger Ties,
"Of course, they welcomed the
British, but their need was not so
great when the British went. Of
course, they welcomed the British,
but there were ties between them and
us which there has not been between
them and the British, and 80 when
our troops went there was an instant
spontaneous rise in the morale of
the French, but an equally instant
and spontaneous insistence that these
soldiers who came from America
should continue to come in an un-
broken stream.
And so, we made the election. We
decided not to send the regular army
as a whole, but to send regular div
isions and National Guard divisions
selected according to the state Of
preparation, and keep back here
some part Of our trained force in
order that it might inocculate with
its spirit and its training these raw
levies which we were training, and
one after another these divisions
have gone over until in France there
is a fighting army, an army trained
in essentials and in the beginning Of
essentials and in the beginning Of
military discipline and practice, and
trained seasoned fighters in this
kind of a war on actual battlefields
where it is taking place. .
Engineering Regiments
'Early in this war, when Joffre
was here, and when Balfour was here
they said to US, 1T may take you
some time to get over to us a great
fighting army, but you are a great
industrial country, our man-power
is fully engaged in our industries
and our military enterprises, send
over artisans, special engineering
regiments and troops Of techni-
cal character and although it was
not contemplated at the outset,
and only a phrase in the emergency
military legislation shows that the
thing thought of only as possibility
yet in a very short time we had or
ganized engineering regiments of
railroad men and sent them over
there and were rebuilding behind