Life — August 1, 1918 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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AUGUST 1, 1918 "While there ts Lize there's Hope" Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY A. Mitten, Sec’y and Treas, 17 West Thirty-first Street, New York English Offices, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs., London, E. C. UR soldiers in France seem to be thoroughly con- scientious men. Knowing very well for what purpose they were diverted from their former em- ployments and sent across the seas, they seem determined to accomplish that purpose at earliest convenience. The stories which, at this writing, we have been reading about them for a week, all show this honorable and very active disposition to do the errand their country sent them on, and assist General Foch to persuade the Germans that France is no place for them, and that the most ordinary con- sideration for health demands that all Germans shall return to the comforts of home, and to baths, treatment and a strengthening dict. Dr. Ludendorff seems still of opin- ion that what Germans need is more foreign travel and residence in France, Belgium, Russia and other adjacent countries, but he has begun to have hard work to get it for them. As for Old Doctor Hindenburg, he appears to have retired from consultation. Since July tsth Dr. Foch has pretty well had charge of the German case, and his management of it has given us the best reading we have had in many, many months. Everybody can now find Sois- sons and Rheims on the map, and un- derstands that the black bulge south of the line between them is full of Germans who ought to go home, and doubtless would prefer to do so, and whose return to Fatherland is being expedited with all the energy that the Allied powers can apply. Just how much, relatively, our gen- tlemen have been able to contribute to the heartening proceedings since Bas- tille Day has not been exactly com- puted for us, but the papers say 300,000 of them have been helping, and all authorities agree that they have helped. Gratefully and with enthusiasm we gather from the correspondents’ stories the assurance that our men are first- class fighting-men; bold, vivacious, skilful; ready for any duty and out looking for it; ready to die for the cause and very expensive to kill. This Rheims to Soissons fight has called in more Americans than have been in any battle since the Civil War. According- ly the casualty lists, when they come, will be heavy reading, but casualty lists are the price of victory, and we shall not feel that ours are too heavy a price for our share in such achievements as, now, we read of every morning. Yorobo und a stein of sclrapps! OW great a comfort it is to have matters move forward again! In the early successes of the German drive it was always possible to have confi- dence in the Allied resistance and to find comfort in the conviction that mat- ters must and would come right in the end, and that the man-power was in sight to make them come so. But it is a lot better to read these tales of Ger- mans in pockets and Frenchmen and Americans potting them, and of miles of front recovered instead of more miles being yielded, and of prisoners taken by the thousand and guns to match, They tell us, with this fight a week old and Rupprecht rushing troops to help the German Crown Prince, that it is too soon yet to expect the great Allied assault, and that Foch will not attempt it yet. But the charm of read- ing day by day of a great battle like this is that no one can tell how far it will go or where it will come out. There have actually been cavalry charges in this fight, and the corre- spondents have been generous in re- galing us with the extraordinary ex- ploits of individual American soldiers, as of that redoubtable Sergeant Brown, from somewhere, a machine-gunner, who got lost in the woods, captured a German machine gun all by himself, picked up a corporal and presently eleven other Americans, and came into the American lines after a while with one hundred and fifty-five German prisoners, The Times printed this story, and it reads true, and if it is true the other Germans ought to go right home and explain about it to their folks, for the home Germans will want to know. EGINNING July 16th, there was a sort of Republican convention at Saratoga, largely attended by ladies, and considerably bossed by them. It was attended also by Colonel Roose- velt, who made a speech. It was not a nominating convention, because conventions in this state no longer nominate; but it was a social occasion of much potency—so many ladies be- ing on hand—and political views were exchanged, The view that easily prevailed was that the Colonel ought to run for gov- ernor and unite the Republican party in New York. This was a natural view to take. If the Colonel would run, he could prob- ably be nominated and elected. He could beat Whitman in the primaries, which is very earnestly desired by a good many Republican chiefs, and at the polls he could probably beat every- body, including William Hearst, if William should obtain the Democratic nomination. So there was remarkable unanimity in the desire that the Col- onel should run; the Republican ladies, comicbooks.com