"I shall have time tables made for the men on leave," he said and then for an instant he became the shrewd French business man rather than the dashing general.
"I have figured out," he explained, "that the army can afford to sell these time tables for five sous. It wouldn't do to give them away. Nobody would value them then."
A week later we had another visitor. French generals and all their resplendent aides clicked their heels together and stood at attention as this civilian passed by. He was a short stoutish man in blue serge knickerbockers and a dark yachting cap. His tailor deserved no decoration for this seemed a secondary sort of costume and headgear in a group loaded down with gold braid and valor medals. But their swords flashed for the man in the yachting cap and a great general saw him into his car, for the stoutish visitor was the President of the French Republic. Generals Pétain and Pershing accompanied Poincaré in his car up to the drill ground. It was an American division which marched this morning. In fact it was the same unit which had marched through the streets of the port only a few months before. They had grown browner and straighter since that day and they looked taller. Group consciousness had dawned in them now. The only lack of discipline was shown by the mules. It must be admitted that the mule morale left much to be desired. Many were new to the task of dragging machine guns and those that did not sulk tried to run away. Strong arms and stronger words prevailed upon them.
"Remember," the driver would plead, "you have a part in making the world safe for democracy," and in a trice all the evil would flee from the eyes and the heels of the unruly animals.
A number of bands helped to keep the men swinging into the face of a driving rain. The French officers who accompanied Pétain and Poincaré were somewhat surprised when one regiment went by to the tune of "Tannenbaum," but General Pershing explained that it had been played in America for years under the name of "Maryland, My Maryland." He had a harder task some minutes later when a band struck up a regimental hymn called "Happy Heinie," which borrows largely from "Die Wacht am Rhein" for its chorus.