27
While you’re living in the bright lights with the merry and gay
There’s a loving heart you’ve broken just to pass the time away
And she is more lonesome, more lonesome than you.
LOU KLEIN AND HARRY VON TILZER, “There’s Someone More Lonesome Than You”
The cooperation of French, British, and colonial soldiers that functioned in the trenches seldom worked so well at command level, where it clashed, screeched, and seized up periodically like a rusty machine. Many British and American officers regarded fraternization with the French as disloyalty, even treason. The poet e. e. cummings and a friend spent four months in a French prison camp after an officer decided cummings’s antiwar sentiments, his speaking French, and his friendship with French officers suggested he was a spy. Some Allied officers believed arrogantly that they were there to show the slovenly French how war should be fought. Lionel Lindsay, brother of Norman, drew a notably undiplomatic sketch in which a jovial koala bear in trim AIF kit and slouch hat consoles a bedraggled, battle-worn poodle wearing the tattered uniform of a poilu.
Well-meaning French people made things worse by attempting to explain concepts they didn’t understand. “The whole world knows the famous ‘Tipperary,’ ” wrote one journalist. ”Civilians think it’s a cheerful song, bouncy and gay. How wrong! It’s slow and melancholy, particularly when the voices descend about the middle of the refrain.” A Parisian music hall picked up on this idea and, inspired by the death of Edith Cavell, presented a dramatized version, sung mournfully as the singer is marched to her death. “Good-bye, Piccadilly,” she sobs as the shots ring out. “Farewell, Leicester Square!” The French audience couldn’t understand why Britons among them were laughing.
Australians and Frenchmen who managed to become friendly discovered more affinities than differences. “Mateship,” for example, had always been regarded as a uniquely Australian institution. That poilus could regard a pote, or pal, with similar esteem initially surprised Australians, then became the basis of an enduring understanding. An issue of La Baïonnette devoted to les potes contains numerous images redolent of Aussie mateship: soldiers spoon-feeding injured friends or sharing the last puffs of their pipe. Other sketches were more melodramatic. “Why did you jump in front of me when they fired?” asks a soldier of his wounded comrade. “Because you have kids,” he replies. In another, the sergeant demands of a corporal, “Why did you risk your life to save a dead man?” The man says, “He was my pote.” One didn’t need to explain such decisions to Australians. They would do the same for one of their mates and not think twice.
Prudish staff officers particularly disapproved of the complaisant French attitude to sex and banned the erotic magazines produced for its troops. They singled out La Vie Parisienne and the pinups of its most popular artist, Raphael Kirchner, an émigré from Austria and therefore, in their eyes, a potential fifth columnist. To Australians, this was yet another infringement on their already circumscribed liberty. One of them, Frank Molony, wrote in his diary:
In this morning’s orders, Kirchner [was] pronounced anathema, and La Vie Parisienne declared beyond the pale. In a word—trading with the French in indecent pictures and literature is forbidden. The “indecent pictures” referred to are of the French—photographs of the nude—and of beautiful courtesans certainly, so beautiful that only rarely can the terrible word “indecent” be used toward them, but the literature! Considering the only doubtful literature sold to the Troops by the Frenchies comes from well-established London publishers, this order is quite in keeping with their damned hypocrisy and pettiness.
La Vie Parisienne cover by Kirchner
Postwar novels, films, and songs like “How Ya Gonna Keep ’Em Down on the Farm After They’ve Seen Paree?” give the impression that numerous American servicemen took leave in Paris. In fact, very few Allied soldiers ever saw the city. They were given little enough leave to start with: five days a year, if they were lucky. Most Britons and Australians spent it in Britain, where they didn’t face the barrier of language, but Americans were forbidden to do so unless they had blood relatives there. As their bases were far to the east, in the Argonne and Savoie, doughboys were urged to take their leave in such regional centers as the sleepy spa town of Aix-les-Bains.
The first Americans to spend a furlough in Aix-les-Bains were taken straight from the front for that purpose and, to their collective surprise, whisked there en masse in a public relations exercise. The YMCA, which handled leisure activities for the American Expeditionary Force, orchestrated a lavish reception. The Aixois did their best to make the first contingent welcome. Flags were flying and locals cheered as the grubby and bemused doughboys paraded through town. Their hosts had even scraped together a baseball team; “the nine in white linen trousers, red jerseys, bare heads and knees and American flags tied about their arms stood with chattering teeth and trembling legs for two hours.” That evening, the former casino, now converted into a club for soldiers on leave, presented a show by vaudeville performers from London, and the African American musician and composer James Reese Europe, identified simply as “Europe,” led the band.
Stars and Stripes described the events under the optimistic headline “Fresh from Trenches to Delights of Aix.” Its reporter worked hard to boost Savoie, “that little wedge of pure beauty that keeps the Alps from slipping down into the broad plains of northern Italy.” He explained that both Queen Victoria and J. P. Morgan sampled the baths of Aix and enjoyed its hotels, seventy of which, with a little arm-twisting, had agreed to accept doughboys as guests.
The reporter insisted that Aix promised a pleasant, if not terribly dramatic leave: “hikes on the mountains, motor boat trips on the magnificent lakes, auto trips, billiards and other games, a library, reading, writing, and lounging rooms. As warm weather comes there will be added outdoor recreations—golf, tennis, squash.” Pleasant enough—but for a young soldier hoping to accumulate enough memories for a lifetime, a hot bath, a soft bed, and a good book were not what he was looking for.
Allied troops stationed farther west had a better chance of seeing Paris, but not before they were thoroughly indoctrinated. The historian James Curran wrote:
Upon arrival in Paris, Australian soldiers were taken directly to Caserne de la Pérpinière barracks for lectures on the dangers of VD and for distribution of prophylactics and treatment aids. This was also where leave passes were stamped to confirm arrival, which annoyed the soldiers, many of whom dodged the trip. It was unpopular for two reasons. First, the Anzacs resented the lectures concerning the horrible effects of venereal disease: they had already seen enough bodily mutilation in the trenches, and the sordid details in the lectures gave the impression that even the prospect of pleasure could be spoiled. Second, the lectures stole valuable time. Because Paris leave was so prized by the troops (even though it was usually for only four or five days, half the time allotted to London, or “Blighty,” leave) and also because it was initially open only to officers (whose pay it was thought could more easily cover the expense of Paris leave)—these incursions into an already truncated period of time infuriated the troops. Their response was to intensify their leave period, to compensate not only for the lack of time, but also for the possibly limited lifespan they faced as soldiers. For this, Paris would prove to be the perfect environment.
Those that did get there spent their time in Paris mostly visiting museums, parks, and monuments: the Louvre (when it was not closed for the duration), the gardens of the Tuileries, the Palais de Justice, the Bois de Boulogne, described by one soldier as “Paris’s Hyde Park,” the Eiffel Tower (though fenced off and adapted to radio transmissions), the cathedral of Notre Dame, even the military museum at the Hôtel des Invalides, and sometimes the Palace of Versailles.
As few ventured into Montparnasse, Montmartre, or the working-class areas locals called Panam, the lives of typical Parisians remained an enigma to them. When they speak of the French in their letters, it’s seldom by name. Those they do describe are thebourgeoisie of central Paris, whom they would know only from seeing them on the street or in a café. Women were invariably admired from a distance. One Australian wrote:
I never saw a really plain girl all the while I was there, neither did I see a thick pair of ankles. Invariably small in build, they are dainty without exception, with large languorous eyes, both blue and brown, lashes that lay upon their cheeks as it were, noses aquiline, sensitive and artistic, mouths small with moist red lips, rounded, well moulded chins and nearly always a dimple in each cheek. When they talk, they do it with their eyes, and when they smile it is the same, their conversation is full of music, it is just delightful to listen to them. Only small it’s true, but they are just bubbling over with the very joy of life, chock full of spirits and enjoying love and passion to their utmost capacity.
Guides put out of work by the disappearance of the tourist trade preyed on the soldiers, steering them to the same clip joints they’d taken civilians to before 1914. One group of Australians fell into the hands of a guide who claimed to have worked for the prestigious Thomas Cook travel agency.
We dived into a back street and went into the As de Coeur—Ace of Hearts. It was a dirty shop with a couple of naked (except for shoes, stockings and a flimsy silk scarf) women flitting about in it. They sat on fellows’ knees and carried on generally. We had a drink and departed. The next place was Les Belles Foules—The Beautiful Fowls [actually, Aux Belles Poules: poule corresponds to the English “chick”]—slightly higher in tone. Numbers of half dressed girls were here. They went on with some disgusting dances and foolery. Next place we took taxis to. It was an exhibition such as might grace a back street in Cairo, but something that I did not believe could be seen in Paris.
Paris brothel, 1917
Less squalid companionship was available to the personable visitor if he knew where to look. The bars of such music halls as the Moulin Rouge, Concert Mayol, and in particular the Folies Bergère were well-known pickup spots. An Australian who visited the Folies in March 1917 disapproved of the show’s suggestiveness, but also of the “working girls” of the promenoir.
On the whole the show may be described as rotten. At the back is the promenade a very brilliant sight and nearly the whole audience repair there between the acts to stroll and listen to an orchestra there. Throngs of girls—some very beautiful—infest the place and persistently keep pestering you, clinging on to belt and having to be beaten off almost. The performance on the stage would not have been tolerated in Australia, first on account of its dirt (which had not even the redeeming grace of smartness) and secondly on account of its absolute weakness [i.e., lack of humor].
Most of the songs and gags were in French. The only bright spot was at the last when all lights were turned out and a girl appeared in the air sitting in a chariot on the end of a long pole. This was thrust right over the audience and her feet brought just above the heads of the audience. There was great competition to get her shoes and eventually she lost them both. When the show terminated we set off for home and had to run the gauntlet of guides & girls which took not a little negotiating.
Less predatory women cruised the upper lounges of larger theaters such as the Châtelet and Théâtre du Champs-Elysées. For a few francs, any one of them would take a man back home, or to an hôtel de passe that rented rooms by the hour.
Military officialdom equated promiscuity with prostitution, but some women were just looking for a good time. Canadian writer and longtime Paris resident Mavis Gallant has written of “that mute invitation [that] used to be known as, ‘Suivez-moi, jeune homme.’ [Follow me, young man.] It was the prerogative of married women. The unmarried were chaperoned, or didn’t dare, or were semi-professional—which means to say, just now and then, hoping just for a good dinner in a decent restaurant, a cab home, a bit of cash.”
Women encountered in this way expected no more than for the man to pay for a meal and the room, and perhaps “buy them a new hat”—the polite formula for a small cash gift. Most were more than satisfied with the arrangement. La Baïonnette published a cartoon of a young English private putting on his trousers while his companion of the night says coyly, “I wish there were more ‘contemptibles’ like you.”
Encounters like this were common among soldiers on leave in Britain, where language was not a barrier. In France, to meet a woman required basic French. Officers enjoyed the advantage of higher education and could often speak the language, whereas, even after months in France, the average Tommy or Aussie knew little more than Promenez avec moi? (Walk with me?), Couchez avec moi? (Sleep with me?), Parlez-vous? (Do you, or will you, speak to me?), Toot sweet (i.e., tout de suite, immediately), and the all-purpose Bon (Good).
Discouraged by their officers from learning the language, they developed a form of Franglais that further mangled communication. To them, the town of Ypres, which the French pronounce something like “Eepr,” looked like “Wipers,” which is what they called it. There was even a trench newspaper called The Wipers Times. Trying to order wine in a café and hearing the French ask for vin blanc, Australians misheard it as “plonk,” which became, and remains, Aussie slang for wine of any sort.
Once the Americans arrived, language became a bone of contention. Doughboys resented what some saw as an unwillingness on the part of locals to learn “American.” As for learning French themselves, its grammar and pronunciation seemed to them perversely misleading. In one of his invented letters home from baseball player cum doughboy Jack Keefe, humorist Ring Lardner had him describe his problems with his French tutor.
For inst. he asked me what was the English word for very in French so I knew it was tres so I said tres and he says no it was tray because you say the letter e like it was the letter a and you don’t pay no attention to the letter s. So I asked him what it was there for then and he said that was just the French way of it so I had a notion to tell him to go and take a jump in the lake but I decided to say nothing and quit.
The few British and Australian soldiers who found French girlfriends then had to adjust to their more sophisticated sexual habits. In his memoir Good-bye to All That, Robert Graves, a captain in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, wrote of his fellow officers, some of whom spoke French:
A good deal of talk in billets concerned the peculiar bed-manners of Frenchwomen. “She was very nice and full of games. But when I said to her: ‘S’il vous plaît, ôtes-toi la chemise, ma chérie,’ she wouldn’t. She said: ‘Oh, no’-non, mon lieutenant. Ce n’est convenable.’ ”
“Please take off your blouse, my dear.” “Oh no, my lieutenant. That’s not appropriate.”
Gradually hints of new tastes crept into the jokes and songs sung by Tommies and Anzacs. In particular, a Tipperary parody signaled the arrival of cunnilingus on the Anglo-Saxon sexual menu.
That’s the wrong way to lick a Mary.
That’s the wrong way to kiss.
Don’t you know that over here, lad,
They like it best like this.
Hurray pour les Françaises.
Farewell Angleterre.
We didn’t know how to tickle Mary
But we learnt over there.