BARRACKS A. R. G AMERICAN RED CROSS 



BY P. L. BUTTRICK, SECOND LIEUT., A. R. C. 



WE are accustomed to think of an army in the 

 field as an institution which lives mostly in tents 

 or occasionally, when nothing much is happen- 

 ing, as when the Northern armies went into winter quar- 

 ters along the potomac in our Civil War, in log huts 

 banked with earth and roofed with canvas. In peace 

 time when not on manceuvers an army is supposed to 

 sleep in permanent stone barracks. 



Most of our wars have been fought over rather wide 

 stretches of thinly settled country where tents were 

 about the only 

 available 

 means of shel- 

 ter. In Europe 

 a mental pic- 

 ture of an 

 army in the 

 field does not 

 include long 

 rows of tents, 

 since Western 

 Europe is so 

 thickly settled 

 that its armies 

 have generally 

 been housed, 

 billeted is the 

 regular mili- 

 tary term, in 

 small villages, 

 troops being 

 quartered i n 

 each house ac- 

 cording to its 

 capacity. 



In all the tiny 

 villages of the 

 French war 

 zone one sees 

 today signs on 

 each house 

 stating how many soldiers may be quartered there. In 

 the zone of operations of the American army these signs 

 are in two languages so as to be understood by the offi- 

 cers of both armies. 



In the present war, it was early discovered that owing 

 to the large size of the armies involved it was impossi- 

 ble to lodge them all successfully in the villages behind 

 the lines. It seemed, therefore, that the country back 

 of the lines must soon be dotted with white, kahki, or 

 horizon blue tents, which would as time and material 

 became available gradually be floored over with rough 

 boards and have their sides builtup with rough lumber 

 and logs reminiscent of the environs of Alexandria, 



TYPICAL SCENE AT ONE OF THE CAMPS 



An earnest worker of the Red Cross at one of the camps in France. In the background may be seen 

 barracks of the standard type of construction. 



Virginia, in the winters of the Sixties. But this develop- 

 ment has never taken place, partly due to the fact that 

 it was early realized that most of these shelters would 

 have to be semi-permanent and not often moved, partly 

 because the moist European climate is not so favorable 

 to tent life as our own, partly perhaps because canvas in 

 the enormous quantities necessary was not available at 

 once. 



One sees tents in the war zones lots of them they 

 are used for the temporary supply depots for housing 



strictly mobile 

 units and very 

 largely for 

 aeroplane 

 hangars, but 

 the main prob- 

 lem of shelter 

 for troops be- 

 hind the lines 

 which cannot 

 be housed in 

 existing build- 

 ings has been 

 solved in quite 

 another fash- 

 ion by the 

 use of large 

 numbers of 

 portable or 

 semi - portable 

 wooden build- 

 ings, barraqnes 

 demontables, 

 as they are 

 called in 

 French. 



These are 

 wooden struc- 

 tures built of 

 panels sup- 

 ported on trus- 

 sed framework. They are built at sawmills or wood- 

 working plants and easily assembled with the aid of 

 a few nails at the point of erection. The French army 

 uses several types of these barracks, some made from 

 its own designs and some from designs of various 

 engineering firms in France. Some are fitted with floors, 

 double walls, ceilings and glass windows, others are 

 simply single walled, floorless shacks with cheese cloth 

 soaked in oil in place of glass in the windows. Gen- 

 erally they are made of pine or spruce pin et sapin de 

 bon qualite, reads the description but like lots of other 

 things much depends upon the interpretation of the word 

 "bon." In the earlier days of the war the French sacri- 



448 



