The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1919-04-05
THE LITTLE TOWNS OF FRANCE.
What the Americans Made Note of as
They Passed in Returning from
the Fight.

The American soldiers summoned into
line for the third and last phase of the
Argonne drive will remember it all the
days of their lives. But the memory that
will lie always closest to their hearts
and will color most beautifully the stor
les they are to tell to their children in
the glorious years to come is not the
memory of the pursuit, which was tri-
umphant, nor of the speed, which was
exhausting beyond all words. 1t is rath
er, the memory of the scores of commu-
mites reclaimed in the path that leads
| from the Grandpre to Sedan, the little
old lost towns of France.
From that misty September morning
when the American first army struck its
! first blow northwest of Verdun to that
misty November morning when the order
"Cease firing" sounded from Switzerland
to the sea, more than $50 towns and vii
lagos were won back by force of arms
| Some of these, the first recaptured, are
so nearly obfiterated that those who had
| lived there all their days will find not
one familiar wall or door to greet their
desolate return. But others, more than
| half of all, were little battered by the
war, and in all of those, from Buzancy
| northward, halfincredulous, altogether
| iubilant population stood waiting with
outstretched hands, waiting, with laugh
ter and tears and songs and coffee and
kisses, the advent of their deliverers.
| Food was not abundant, but, thanks
| to the American "ravitaillement,' it was
enough. What they lacked most sorely
was word from their own people and It'd
ings from the world outside Once or
twice year, through the officers of the
Red Cross in Switzerland brief letters,
no longer than kilograms, would come
| from their kin on the other side of the
battle line, but for news of how that
battle was going they had to depend on
that curidenncs, the official publication
of the occupied territory, which appeared
every week--up to the time when the
American doughboys kept the printers
moving every day-when it suddenly and
mysteriously ceased to issue.
The Gazette DIES Ardennes was made
up for the main part Of articles care
fully written by the Germans and cal
culated TO dishearten the French-arti-
cles which particularly and persistently
derided the notion that the Americans
could make any difference in the relent-
less course of the war.
Through the Gazette it was possible TO
send for "all the latest books'-splen-
did books to read such as "The Decad-
ence of England" The Capital Crimes
of Belgium Guilty Belgium and
many others OF the same ilk.
In most of the recaptured French
towns when dawn came on that frosty
morning of Nov. II could be heard the
iingling of harness, the squeals and
braying of the mules, the swelling chorus
OF grumbling and shouting and laughter
the music of an American regiment
waking up.
! In the hard frozen mud OF one Of the
shot torn roads a Yankee lad -he might
have still been in .he high school had he
stayed in the States met little French
girl about 10 years, blue with the cold
and ysibly shivering in thin, long
worn gineham dress.
well. I'll be " said the youthful
| doughboy. Il can't stand that"
! His pack was lighter when he took to
the road with his company an hour or so
later And If any quartermaster raised
a fuss about missing 0. d. blanket,
Stars and Stripes hopes heaven will have
mercy on that quartermaster's SOUL
From the Stars and Stripes.