In late spring of 1918, as thousands of A.E.F. doughboys were arriving in
France, an article in the American military newspaper The Stars and Stripes offered “An Earful of Suggestions for Boys
Back Home.” One suggestion advised those headed “Over There,”
Throw away your ‘parley-voo’ books and forget all
the French the Y.M. has been teaching you in your cantonment huts this
winter. You won’t need it. “We have the natives so well acquainted with
United States now that they understand everything we say—even when we get
unduly accurate on one another’s ancestry.
Even if you do get stuck, there’s only one way to learn French—that is
to talk it, and make it up as you go along.
In the course of time you’ll get at least half of what you want.”*
Charles (“Chick”) Divine “the babbling Rupert Brooke of the New York
Division, [who] slings as hot a sonnet as anybody,”** was a newspaper reporter
on The New York Sun before the
war.
Divine recalled his efforts to join the army after war was declared:
Trying to enlist and being rejected twice for
underweight, wondering, fatuously, what to do next. Hegira to Binghamton. Cottage by the river. Lots of sleep and rustic diet. Gained weight. Appearing at the Binghamton armory for
another physical examination. First
drinking many quarts of water. Passed examination!***
Combining self-deprecating humor with a bit of swagger, Divine’s verse
and comical essays were enormously popular, and the New York Sun praised his collection of war poetry as “the Happiest
Verse of America at War.”† Other reviews praised City Ways and Company Streets for capturing “the real spirit of the
American citizen soldier,”†† while the writer himself was described as “a sort
of camp Kipling; he is sometimes grave, sometimes gay, but always cheerful.”†††
It’s worth considering the ways in which Divine’s poetry both reflected and shaped Americans’ sense of their identity and their attitudes towards the war. Americans wanted a quick and easy victory, and so they welcomed the “Happiest Verse of America at War.” The Cornell Alumni News said of the former student, “Divine is a true poet. He never tries to write what he hasn’t seen or felt. He never poses. He is no rhapsodist. In the sincere work of such as he, in the broadening and deepening of their experience and the increase of their delineative skill, lies the immediate hope of American poetry. England has had great and living verse out of this tragic war; we should have it too. From three thousand miles away, it will come to us, celebrating in fit and memorable measures the part we are taking in the effort to save the freedom we have always died for.”§
Serving in France, Divine wrote of the language battles doughboys waged behind the front lines; the following poem was published in The Stars and Stripes in late October of 1918.
It’s worth considering the ways in which Divine’s poetry both reflected and shaped Americans’ sense of their identity and their attitudes towards the war. Americans wanted a quick and easy victory, and so they welcomed the “Happiest Verse of America at War.” The Cornell Alumni News said of the former student, “Divine is a true poet. He never tries to write what he hasn’t seen or felt. He never poses. He is no rhapsodist. In the sincere work of such as he, in the broadening and deepening of their experience and the increase of their delineative skill, lies the immediate hope of American poetry. England has had great and living verse out of this tragic war; we should have it too. From three thousand miles away, it will come to us, celebrating in fit and memorable measures the part we are taking in the effort to save the freedom we have always died for.”§
Serving in France, Divine wrote of the language battles doughboys waged behind the front lines; the following poem was published in The Stars and Stripes in late October of 1918.
When Private Mugrums Parley Voos
I can count my
francs and santeems—
If I’ve got a basket
near—
An’ I speak a
wicked “bon jour,”
But the verbs
are awful queer.
An’ I lose a lot
o’ pronouns
When I try to
talk to you,
I forget to
parlay voo.
In your pretty
little garden,
With the bench
beside the wall,
An’ the sunshine
on the asters,
An’ the purple
phlox so tall,
I should like to
whisper secrets
But my language
goes askew—
With the second
person plural
For the more
familiar “too.”
In your pretty
little garden
I could always
say “juh tame,”
But it ain’t so very
subtle,
An’ it ain’t not
quite the same
As “You’ve got
some dandy earrings,”
Or “Your eyes
are nice and brown”—
But my
adjectives get manly
Right before a
lady noun.
Those
infinitives perplex me;
I can say you're
“tray jolee,”
But beyond that
simple statement
All my tenses
don't agree.
I can make the
Boche “comprenney”
When I meet ’em
in a trench,
But the softer
things escape me
When I try to
yap in French.
In your pretty
little garden
Darn the idioms
that dance
On your tongue
so sweet and rapid,
Ah, they hold me
in a trance!
Though I stutter
an’ I stammer,
In your garden,
on the bench,
Yet my heart is
writin’ poems
When I talk to
you in French.
—Charles Divine
Most American
soldiers had never left their home states, and many had never encountered any
language other than English. The Soldiers’ French Phrase Book, published
in Chicago, offered “a convenient and serviceable aid to the intelligible
expression in French of words and phrases.” Phrases that were deemed useful included
translations of the following:
How is your father/mother/wife/husband?
Did you sleep
well last night?
He has been
wounded in the chest.
A bullet pierced
his lips.
Are you telling
me the truth?
My sweetheart.
You will always
be in my memory.
Please write to
me.
Are you fond of
flowers?
Do you dance?
She is a doll.
Popular songs of
the time such as “Wee, Wee, Marie” and “I’m Crazy Over Every Girl in France” celebrated
the romantic inclinations of American soldiers while laughing at their
linguistic shortcomings, with lyrics such as,
Young
Sammy Brown was a volunteer,
Went
off to France like a cavalier,
Sammy
learned to say ‘oui oui/ wee wee’
You
for me, ‘Ma cherie.’°
Historian Hilary
Kaiser in French War Brides in America estimates
that “approximately 10,000 members of the AEF ended up marrying European
women" and of the weddings that were officially recorded, about 6,000 were with French women.°° The Stars and Stripes’ advice to doughboys seems
accurate: even halting attempts to speak French gained some lovelorn American soldiers
the desires of their hearts.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Earful of Suggestions for
Boys Back Home,” Stars and Stripes, 22
Feb. 1918, p. 3.
** “Here are the Men Who Launch the Gas Attack,” Gas Attack of the New York Division
23 March 1918, p. 21.
*** Howard Willard Cook, Our Poets of Today, Moffat, Yard & Co, 1918, p.
109.
† “Divine, True Soldier Poet,” The
Sun, 25 Aug. 1918, section 6, p. 1.
†† Howard Willard Cook, Our Poets of Today, Moffat, Yard & Co, 1918, p. 104.
††† “Current Poetry,” Literary
Digest, 23 Mar. 1918, p. 46.
§ Cornell Alumni News, 24 Oct. 1918, vol. 21, no. 5, p. 55.
° “I’m Crazy Over
Every Girl in France,” lyrics by Alfred Bryan, composed by Pete Wendling and
Jack Wells, 1917.
°° Hilary
Kaiser, French War Brides in America, Greenwood
Publishing, 2008, pp. xxiii-xxv.
You truly deserve a bottle of 'ving blong' for this entry, Connie.
ReplyDeleteIn war chronicles one can find some fun in the host of corruptions which the soldiers made of, eg, place names. Auchonvillers (Somme) became 'Ocean Villas', Hébuterne was turned into 'About Turn' and Godewaertsvelde into 'Gerty Wears Velvet'.
Believe me, I never fail to go for my next visit of those places without a smile appearing on my face, owing to the indomitable spirit and humour with which the men 'stuck it' in those days.
It is all so intricately linked up with our living practically on the rim of where our world witnessed some of its worst and most precarious days.
It is the silver lining around the darkest cloud.
All best, Chris.