World War: Bearskins at Home

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By last week some 200,000 men of the British Expeditionary Force were across the Channel and safely in place. They continued arriving by night, three or four transports at a time, without interruptions. German submarines and the great German Air Force did not even throw a leaflet at them—just as the Allies did little to prevent the Germans from bringing up hundreds of thousands of men and tons of supplies to man the West-wall.

No one officially said where the B. E. F. was stationed, but everyone knew: on France's low-lying Belgian border from Lille to Hirson, right where the "Old Contemptibles" took their stand 25 years ago. They were assigned this position because, if the Western Front develops a war of movement, the movement will most likely come through the Dutch-Belgian door. The B. E. F. consists of a dozen divisions of troops mostly mechanized and motorized. There is one vehicle for each six men. A break-through by the Germans anywhere would be most effectively rushed to and met by the British mobile divisions —still called cavalry—and by motorized infantry.

Lord Gort, commander-in-chief of the B. E. F., lunched international news correspondents at B. E. F. headquarters—in the hotel of a small town still wearing scars of World War I. In dispatches delayed until last week he was reported as warning his guests against losing sight of the men amongst so many machines. Said he: "The man remains master of those machines and . . . from men . . . results will come. If the spirit of the men is not right the aircraft and tanks will never reach their destinations. The man remains foremost, last and all the time."

Lord Gort carefully toasted President Roosevelt and paid special deference to the correspondents by saying: "We really welcome your presence here to tell your people what we are doing in France. We regard you as our cooperators and collaborators."

To get a sense of what a "cavalryman"' mounted on his mechanical steed experiences during a charge, Correspondents Webb Miller (U. P.) and Harold Denny (New York Times) rode together in one of the B. E. F.'s fast, small tanks. Mr. Miller got a banged leg, Mr. Denny a sense of awe and seaksickness as they joggled cross-country on rubber-padded perches within their little juggernaut.

John O'Donnell of the New York Daily News wrote: "The war is a washout—figuratively and actually." Rain had reduced the Cambrai plain to a snipe bog, and "no gun has yet been fired in anger." Wire enclosures were built to hold German prisoners, but stood empty so far.

Regiments of the Guards* are in the B. E. F., garbed far differently from the bear-skinned beauties whom tourists have seen on their chargers at Whitehall or clumping over the cobbles of Windsor Castle. Bearskins are at home, and the B. E. F. is clad in drab battle costumes cut like mechanics' overalls. They wear rubber boots. Their food comes up in thermos boxes. Their quarters are provided with elaborate drainage systems. Where bullets and bully-beef were their essentials last time, now they depend essentially on petrol and motors. Where being decorative was Guardsmen's principal peacetime duty, being efficient and ready if not actually deadly was their present concern.