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THE OPENING OF THE NEW BOULEVARD SYSTEM OF SAN FRANCISCO The photograph shows the automobile parade which took place on the formal opening of the new boulevard system of San Francisco. The parade as represented is passing the "Twin Peaks'

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FOR LOVE OF FRANCE

BY A. PIATT ANDREW

INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE FIELD SERVICE IN FRANCE

HE American Ambulance Field Serv

ice in France has, if I may use language similar to that of railway men, made over a million ambulance miles since the war began. In other words, it has transported more than two hundred and fifty thousand wounded men an average of four miles each. This takes no account of the innumerable trips made in various directions and for various purposes where no unfortunate passengers were carried.

By reason of such transportation from battlefield to hospital, no doubt an immense number of lives have been saved, for in the business of saving wounded soldiers time is above all things essential, and the automobile saves time and substitutes a comparatively comfortable means of transport for the slowgoing, lumbering, springless carts of other

wars.

I think the above will justify the faith of our American friends whose generosity has so greatly helped to make our Service effective.

At the very start, let me say that, while the American Ambulance Field Service has always enjoyed pleasant relations with the American Red Cross, and many of our men are members of that great organization, and all have the greatest interest in its work in America, we have preferred that our Service in France should not be officially affiliated with it. Our Service was organized for the purpose of helping France-a concrete expression of our sympathy with the French people, our belief in the justice of their cause, our hope in its ultimate triumph. For that reason we have preferred not to be affiliated with an organization which inevitably also has agencies in Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey-the enemies of France! It is important to make clear the distinction between the two organizations, because not infrequently generous Americans who have wanted to help our Service have mistakenly sent money or recruits intended for us to the Red Cross.

Although much has been written on the subject, let me say just a word as to the origin of the American Ambulance Field Service in France.

When the war broke out, Robert Bacon, former Ambassador to France, and a number of other Americans organized a military hospital, in connection with an American civil hospital, a quasi-philanthropic institution which had existed for many years in Paris, to care for the French wounded. This hospital had only a limited number of beds. So in a few weeks it was decided to undertake something on a larger scale. Through the French Government the Lycée Pasteur, an extensive school building then in process of construction at Neuilly, in the outskirts of Paris, was secured. This building had numerous large, well-ventilated, well-lighted rooms, and was capable of being equipped with at least six hundred beds. Through the generosity of many Americans interested in France all essentials were supplied, and by the time the German army got to within twenty-five miles of Paris the hospital was ready for service and was known as the American Ambulance. During the FrancoPrussian War of 1870 the American Government had presented a fully equipped field hospital, which bore the same name, to our sister Republic; but the present institution was due entirely to the initiative and generosity of individual Americans.

When the flood of German invasion surged close to Paris, American volunteers quickly constructed ten ambulances, making their bodies from the packing-cases in which the cars had been brought from America. These roughly constructed ambulances were used to bring in the wounded from the vicinity of Meaux, the nearest region to Paris which the enemy attained. But after the Battle of the Marne the German tide ebbed back some fifty miles from the capital, and it was no longer possible to bring the wounded all the way back to the hospitals in automobiles.

The French Government began rapidly to organize sections of ambulances, each division of the army-approximately twenty thousand soldiers-being equipped with its own section of automobile ambulances. Hospitals near the front were also expeditiously organized. Obviously these could not be located within the zone of shell fire, but school-houses and other public buildings

anywhere from five to ten miles back from the actual firing line were pressed into service for hospital purposes, and to these hospitals the wounded were brought by the automobiles from the dressing stations near the trenches.

I went to France in December of 1914. Years before, as a student, I had lived in that country, and had come to know the endearing and admirable qualities of its people, and when the war broke out it was with a spirit of affection and admiration for France that I sought to render what service I could to a people in distress, to whose genius and ideals we in America owe so much of what makes life worth while.

For two months I drove an ambulance in Flanders and in the vicinity of Dunkirk in northern France. During that time we Americans learned a good deal about the needs of the army for transport service. . We came to realize that the rapid carrying of the wounded from battlefield to hospital was quite as essential to the saving of their lives as was surgical treatment. It was clear that one way to help France was to place at her disposal a number of cars and volunteer American drivers. So it was decided that we should organize a service on a somewhat larger scale and endeavor to have the same attached directly to the French army.

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Other cars having been given, and other Americans having offered themselves for the 'cause," an attempt was made early in January, 1915, to establish a field service at the very front to operate independently of the American Hospital in Paris.

It was not until April, 1915, however, that we succeeded in persuading the French Government to allow our cars, driven by Americans, to go to the very front. Quite naturally the Government hesitated-although it did not actually object-to give our boys, neutrals, a position almost on the firing line, where they could observe every operation of the armies. There was also some hesitancy about submitting our boys to the risks which such service entailed. But we assured the Government, in the first place, that no man would be accepted for our service who was not known to be loyal to the cause of the Allies; and also that we were quite willing to incur the risks involved if only we could be of service to France.

In April of the same year we succeeded in having a section sent to that part of Alsace which the French had wrested from the Ger

mans and were occupying. A section of the service, understand, consists of twenty-two ambulances of a light Ford model, with five or six auxiliary automobiles, including two repair cars, a large truck, a moving kitchen, and one or two staff cars for the officers. The first ambulance section was sent into the mountainous region of Alsace-a country traversed by steep and circuitous mule paths which had been somewhat enlarged to allow for the movement of troops, guns, and supplies. It was not believed possible that automobiles could negotiate these steep mountain roads, so for a few weeks we were permitted to operate only in the valley. But we finally persuaded the military authorities that with our little mountain-climbing cars we could do the work required of us in the rough upper country as well, and that, too, without interfering in any way with the military traffic. Permission being granted, we soon proved that we could operate through almost any country that a mule had been capable of traveling; and where the wounded had previously been transported to the hospitals on mule-back or in horse-drawn, springless carts, and with excruciating suffering to the victims, over a journey of four or five hours, we brought them in carefully suspended automobiles, with a minimum of suffering, and in an hour's time at that!

Early in May, 1915, we were able to offer the French Government another section, which they sent into Lorraine, and for nearly a year the men of this section worked in the region of Bois le Prêtre, where there were continual engagements, during which at least forty thousand Frenchmen gave their lives. Subsequently we supplied five more sections, and we now have two others in course of formation. We have operated sections of our own all along the five hundred miles of French front from Flanders to Switzerland, of from twenty to thirty ambulances to the section. Our little American cars, driven by American volunteers, have run over the flat plains of northern France and the little strip of Belgium which still remains in Belgian hands; they have rendered service along the Somme, where the great FrancoBritish offensive is now under way; have worked on the Aisne, in Champagne, in Lorraine, and in reconquered Alsace. At the great battle of Verdun we operated at one time no fewer than one hundred and twentyfive ambulances, and recently a section of thirty-five of our cars and drivers has been

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Inspector-General of the American Ambulance Field Service in France

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TWO AMERICANS WHO DIED "FOR LOVE OF FRANCE"

sent to Salonika to work with the French Army of the Orient.1

The personnel of this last-named section is typical of our service as a whole. It included eleven graduates or students of Harvard University, three each from Yale and Princeton, and one each from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Virginia. In the service, as a whole, Harvard has shown more interest than any other college. We have had 114 Harvard graduates, about forty Yale men, a similar number from Princeton, and about a dozen each from the Universities of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, and Virginia, as well as representatives of about fifty other American universities. The Service has included doctors and lawyers, architects and painters-especially such as had been in France in their student days-brokers and business men, even a few clergymen, and several poets and writers of distinction, such as Henry Sydnor Harrison and Emery Pottle. They have varied in age

1 Quite independently of the eight sections of the American Ambulance Field Service, it should be said that there are also two independent sections of ambulances in which Americans have served, the Anglo-American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps, conducted by Mr. Richard Norton, and a section controlled by the bankers MorganHarjes.

as much as in profession. The youngest volunteer we have had is Julian Allen, of New York, who was only fifteen when he joined us. In applying, he stretched his age to seventeen, and, as he looked at least twenty, he was readily accepted. We have had, however, at least half a dozen who were over forty-five. In the matter of availability for service age does not seem to count; the young men are the most eager and the most active, but also they are the most restless in periods of slack work. The influence of the older men is particularly helpful in maintaining discipline at such periods.

One great difficulty in the handling of our sections of volunteers has been to keep them contented in periods of repose. Each ambulance section, be it understood, is attached to a division of the army, and a division rarely remains in a sector or region of intense activity at the front for much more than a fortnight at a stretch. The strain is too great and the losses may be heavy. So every division is moved from time to time to a quieter section, often to some village back from the front, where its men can get rested, its losses be repaired, and its equipment restored. This process of rehabilitation may take three or

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