The armies of occupation have been credited with the discovery of a new crime, one not even implied in the Ten Commandments. Indeed, misinformed mortals have usually listed it among the virtues. It is “fraternization.” The average American—unless his habitat be New England—cannot remain aloof and haughty. Particularly the unsophisticated doughboy, bubbling over with life and spirits, is given to making friends with whatever branch of the human family he chances to find about him. Moreover, he was grateful for the advance in material comfort, if not in friendliness, of Germany as compared with the mutilated portion of France he had known. He did not, in most cases, stop to think that it was the war which had made those differences. It was an every-day experience to hear some simple country boy in khaki remark to his favorite officer in a slow, puzzled voice, “Sa-ay, Lieutenant, you know I like these here Boshies a lot better than them there Frogs.” The wrangles and jealousies with their neighbors, on which the overcrowded peoples of Europe feed from infancy, were almost unsuspected by these grownup children from the wide land of opportunity. The French took alarm. There seemed to be danger that the _sale Boche_ would win over _les Américains_, at least the sympathy of the men in the ranks, by his insidious “propaganda.” As a matter of fact, I doubt whether he could have done so. The Germans rather overdid their friendliness. Particularly when it bore any suggestion of cringing, deliberate or natural, it defeated itself, for, simple as he may be in matters outside his familiar sphere, the American soldier has an almost feminine intuition in catching, eventually, a somewhat hazy but on the whole true conception of the real facts. But our allies were taking no chances. A categorical order—some say it emanated from Foch himself—warned the armies of occupation that there must be “no fraternization.”
The interpretation of the order varied. As was to be expected, the Americans carried it out more rigorously than did their three allies along the Rhine. Its application also differed somewhat in separate regions within our own area. At best complete enforcement was impossible. With soldiers billeted in every house, what was to hinder a lovelorn buck from making friends with the private who was billeted in _her_ house and going frequently to visit _him_? On cold winter evenings one rarely passed a pair of American sentries beside their little coal-fires without seeing a slouchy youth or two in the ugly round cap without vizor which we had so long associated only with prisoners of war, or a few shivering and hungry girls, hovering in the vicinity, eying the soldiers with an air which suggested that they were willing to give anything for a bit of warmth or the leavings of the food the sentries were gorging. Whether they merely wanted company or aspired to soap and chocolate, there was nothing to prevent them getting warmer when there were no officers in sight.