Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 213, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1915 — NEW ARMY IS FIT [ARTICLE]

NEW ARMY IS FIT

French People Are Well Pleased With “Keecheenaires” Bring a New Element Into Life at the Front In France —They Sing and Whistle as They March, Say the Peasants. By FREDERICK PALMER. (International News Service.) British Headquarters, France. —The “Keecheenaires,” as the French peasants call the new army, have joined ‘‘Tommee Akeens," the regular, and the “Tereetoreeals” at the front. Tommee begins to feel like the oldest inhabitant. By the way, he does not like to be called “Tommy,” though tlje world persists in a word which is as objectionable to him as “Jacky” is to the American bluejacket. The British regular did all the fighting for the first five months of the war. He had his jokes at the expense of the Territorials, who are about the same as our National Guard, when they arrived. The Territorials thought that they were made soldiers when the war broke out; but they were drilled some more and set to digging reserve trenches behind the line. In the spring they had their turn, and the Canadians, too. “Don’t be downhearted! There are still some Boches left!” the Territorials join the regulars in saying to the new army. Beside the new army the Territorials feel like G. A. Rmen. “It’s kind of you! We knew that you could have killed them all off, if you had wanted to,” the Kitcheners reply. “Don’t charge too fast! Wait for us to catch up!” call the regulars.

“We’ll wait on the Rhine!” answer the new army. Well named is the new army. It has brought a new element into life at the front. When I heard the tramp of a company past my window the other morning I guessed they were new army meh by the peculiar vigor and precision of their tread on the pavement. They bore the stamp of long route marches over English roads and of the merciless formal training of the drill ground. If the average old-timer of the trenches had to run five miles against the average new army man he would be blown half away and the new army man would trot past the goal an easy winner. The other night when one heard some soldiers billeted in a barn singing one was certain without asking that they were new army men. The British regular rarely sings in camp or on the march. Neither elated or depressed he plugs along doing his day’s work. As the new army flows in he will be outnumbered but unchanged. Those new army men were singing “God Have the King” before they lay down in the straw for the night in the land of France which was all so new and strange to them and so commonplace to the veterans. Their fresh young voices were pleasant to the ear. “It is good. The Keecheenaires sing and whistle as they march,” say the French peasants. Everyone hopes they will keep on singing.

If there is any ornament which is obsolete at the front it is the sword. The sword is the officer’s symbol of authority; the sign that he is on duty. In place of it the officer at the front wears his sword belt. His sword along with countless other swords has been checked outside the cloakroom of war along with his umbrella which no one thinks of carrying at the front. You cannot tell him from the other officers except by his eagerness and his battalion insignia. For ten months the new army had waited for its Mecca. Its soldiers have read all about the effects of modern shell fire. They know what they are in for. Learners, they came among experts expecting to be nagged a great deal as novices by the old hands, and except for the veteran regular’s little jokes at their expense they have found everybody very kind. “We need you—and there can’t be too many of you,” say the old-timers. “It’s you who must finish the job which we have begun.” There are men in this new army who have Incomes of ten thousand a year digging trenches beside a man wfio had not a shilling when he enlisted, university graduates taking their baptism of shell fire as private* who “pal up” with men who can hardly read and write. “We like the Keecheenaires,” said a Frenchman. “They are all classes shoulder to shoulder the same as in our army. Rich or poor, a man 1* nothing except the life he can give tor his country.