Evening star., 1927-09-25
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.
.HE sweethearts of the A. E. F.,
10 years after

10 years after
Henrietta, Jeanne, Violete,
i Yvonne, Marie, Celestine,
Odette, Amantine, Aurore,
Rosalie, Hortense. Gertrude, Therese,
>Antoinette, Amelia, Gabrielle, Felicite,
Charlotte, Athenese FRANCHISE, Adri-
enne. Suzette, Ninon, Julie. Hyacinthe,
Paula, Maria, Katrina, Wanda,
Sophia
The slender, black. haired girls who
served win rouge at the Hotel de
Care in Andolet; the fat barmaid at
Hunelstein; the burgomaster's red
headed daughter at Gonzerath; the
saucy mademoiselle in the tobacco.
nist's shop at Rimacourt; the beefy
fraulein who ploughed with a yoke
of mich COWS at Morbach; the priests
niece who wore silk stockings at
Adrienville; the telephone operator
who learned to shoot craps with the
boys at Bernkastle. but who later
snubbed the whole bunch and became
the regular girl OF a second lieutenant;
the German hauptmann's young
widow who had the front pew all to
herself in the church at FflZen-bei-
Mosel and upon whose white face,
aristocratically reverent with its
veiled. severely combed crown Of yel-
low hair, stray wisps Of sunlight
through the benevolent face Of St.
Peter in the chancel window used to
fall like a halo during mass
One hesitates to conjecture what
has become OF all this feminine lace
Of war which stretched from Bordeaux
to Cologne in 1917 and 1918 like finely
crocheted fringes on the drab uniform
coats of embattied nations.
With the return Of so many Ameri-
can veterans to Europe for the tenth
annual convention OF the American
Legion. thousands of girl faces were
fitting like tinted daguerreotypes
through the mass memory of mem
bers of the expeditionary forces.
Parties tour the battle area because
such trips are on the official program,
but there was no romantic anticipa-
ton connected with them. They prob
ably are rather wearisome to many
of the men who actually were in the
fighting zone. 1t requires at least
half a century to make a battlefield
romantic or beautiful. The ivy of
years must trail over It, Bull Run
and Brandy Station, in nearby Vir-
ginia. are just at the beginning of
their romantic era.
Talk to any World War veteran
about the actual fighting. The chances
are that his memory OF events and
places will be rather indistinct. II 1t
Is cIear-cut, there is room for a rea-
sonable suspicion-the test. Of course,
is by no means absolute-that he
never was any nearer the front thar
the ne.drenched dugouts of Bor.
deaux. But talk to him of the billet.
ing areas--those pleasant, pastoral in
teriudes Of war--and his memories
are concrete. He remembers the
names of all the cross-road villages,
of half the French girls, OF the ours
ings he got from the top sergeant for
little escapades, of all the rough'house
comedy which came into his worried
life.
War 10 years after is, generally
speaking. a tragedy only to the perma
nently disabled, to bereaved relatives
to teary pacifists and to students OF
history. To most of the mn who took
part 1t Is rich comedy. They are for
getting the rest. They remember
Suzette with her wooden shoes and
the night the major got drunk and
stumbled into the guardhouse, soaring
the boys half to death.
No, the boys were not going bacF
To see battlefields. Nor was 1t likely
that any great number went to Pari;
to drink. Even in the most ari(