Chapter VII: “the Front”

The average person in this country has a different idea of what the term “Front” means to those who have been “Over there.” “The Front” from this point of view consists of a series of long trenches, filled with infantry, and their personal equipment, such as barbed-wire, for they know that exists, and back of the trenches some cannon; but little does the layman know about the component parts necessary to make up a “front” and all the branches of service that are utilized, each an individual cog in an efficient fighting machine. I shall enumerate some of the departments that are not only necessary but vitally essential.

In addition to the countless thousands who labor in the mills, factories, foundries and machine shops, there must be supply depots, where all this equipment goes for storage when it is completed. These are not unlike our warehouses. From the warehouses, supplies are requisitioned for the different portions or sectors of the front where they may be needed. There are what we might term sub-warehouse stations, generally located back of the front near a railroad siding, where supplies remain until needed by the army. Here a great number of men are required for the clerical work, stock-keeping, loading and unloading. After this the material and equipment must be delivered to different parts of the battle front. This constitutes another big branch of service in which countless auto trucks and men are used, known in the French Army as the Camion Service, and most of the success of an army in either offensive or defensive operations depends largely on this organization and its ability to “deliver the goods.”

Then there are the supply departments for food; for the army has to have meals regularly. It is difficult to realize what it means in the way of supplies to feed an army. Each section of the front has its base of supplies from which the transportation department obtains them. This is where the meat is prepared and weighed out to the different departments of the army.

Other supplies in food stuff are measured out the same way. After this is done, the supplies are transported to the front, or near the front, where the field kitchens are located. Here it is again apportioned and distributed, for the cooks have just so much with which to feed so many. The cooking and serving requires still more men.

Next comes the bakery department. The raw materials are delivered to the bakery and the finished product taken away. One can appreciate the size of some of these army bakeries when you know that their capacity is 180,000 loaves of bread a day. This was the capacity of the one from which our bread came, which I visited. When you consider the output of such a bakery you realize that a great number of men are necessary who don’t fire a shot and yet are a vital factor in a military organization.

The telegraphic and telephone departments constitute still another important element in the system. They employ a great many men, who are continually putting up new equipment and repairing the old, for the lines of communication must be ready at any instant, as they control the movements of the troops and the fire of the artillery.

Then there are the Dressing Stations with their corps, who attend the injured; the brancardiers (stretcher-bearers) and, somewhat removed from the first lines are the _Post du Succors_, with their attendants and doctors. Still farther to the rear are the base hospitals, and after that the Army hospitals, each with its corp of doctors, nurses and attendants, to say nothing of the ambulances, drivers, laboratories and attendants.

There are the auto parks along different sections of the front, where there are hundreds of mechanics busy on cars of every description undergoing repairs of all sorts, for without these what would become of the camion service when new parts were needed for the auto truck? What would become of the supplies that they convey, and what of the army that needed the supplies?

Think of the number of men necessary for the ground work only around the hangars to serve, say, 3,000 planes (between 30 and 40 thousand men). What a part, for instance, of our soldiers concentrated at the Mexican border two years ago would be used up for just this one seemingly small branch of the army of to-day.

There are other departments, such as Observation, Dispatch Riders, Blacksmiths, Mechanical, Camouflage, Road Gangs, Clerical Forces for each division, Horseshoers, Artillery Supply Caissons, which must be utilized; for many times guns are located off the roads and the auto trucks cannot get through the fields and mud, and so the caissons have to be used, as they are horse-drawn.

Last but not least is the very large and important department—that of the engineers who make and repair the bridges, railroads, gun placements, roadways, and new buildings.

All are most necessary for the success of the army for each has just as an important part as the other, and without the thousand upon thousand of non-combatant men behind the lines the ones at the front would count for naught.