TOD SLOAN 



there is nowhere better in the world for training than 

 Chantilly. 



• •«••••• 



It was never to be imagined in the years before 

 1914 that I should be living in Paris when the Germans 

 were only twenty-five miles, or less, from it ; that 

 previously the mobilisation in France for the greatest 

 war in the world should take place, and that I was to 

 be in uniform driving a Red Cross waggon. The 

 trouble, it will be remembered, was anticipated many 

 days before, the chief indication being the scarcity of 

 small money. It was most difficult to get change for 

 even a fifty-franc note, everyone hoarding up gold 

 and silver coinage ; as for foreign money, except for 

 English sovereigns, there were all sorts of impositions 

 in giving change. There was a curious calmness 

 about it all, however, which spoke a lot for the courage 

 of the French people. I wish as much could be said 

 for some of the foreigners left in Paris. I remember 

 one day in particular. Several people rushed to my 

 room early in the morning. I had just gone to bed. 

 " Get up and be off," they cried ; to which I replied, 

 " Wliy should I when I have only just come to bed ? " 

 But they couldn't be stopped, and raced off, trying to 

 get seats to skip away out of the country. This 

 was about three weeks after the opening of the 

 war. 



Straight away I had tried to get something to do, 

 first, as a sharpshooter. But there were two reasons 

 against my acceptance, one being that I was so small 

 that I couldn't stretch out to march with ordinary 

 soldiers, and the other that I was an American subject. 

 Then there was the fruitless endeavour to get a job in 

 connection with a mitrailleuse, for I had been tried 

 out with this, and I was sure that I could make good 



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