THE COMPARATIVE SIZES OF POILUS AND DOUGHBOYS

By David C. Homsher

David C. Homsher, a veteran of U.S. Army service during the Korean War, and now retired, is a historian-writer of the American soldier and his battlefields. Dave has traveled extensively over many of the battlegrounds of both World Wars and he is currently writing a soon to be published series of guidebooks to the American battlefields of the World War I in France and Belgium.

 

The American soldiers of World War I certainly were bigger than their counterparts in the French Army. They were a good head taller and from five to fifteen pounds heavier. The French populace and the French soldiers (poilus) looked upon the average American soldier as being something of a comparative (to the French) giant. The French soldier had an average height of 5 feet 4 inches and the average height of the American soldier was about 5 feet 8 inches, thus the Americans towered over their French companions-in-arms.

That the American was a larger man, was no doubt due to the improved diet and the larger meals that he enjoyed while growing up. When the first doughboys of the AEF arrived in France, the French stood by slack-jawed and pop-eyed, looking at the tall, husky and bronzed soldiers from America as if they were men from outer space. Having been brought up on translated versions of the American dime novels of the Wild West and American made cowboy-western motion pictures, verily the French believed that all Americans had been born in the saddle. The newly arriving soldiers were the "American Indians" literally arriving in France.

It is no exaggeration to state that the French expected to see the Americans come down the gangplanks of the troopships carrying tomahawks and wearing feather-bonnets, instead of carrying Springfield 1903 rifles and wearing their peaked felt campaign hats (which made them look even taller)! Thus was the legend of the "wild, red-Indians from America" reinforced. Of course, the doughboys bolstered this French belief wherever and however they possibly could. Sometimes they would let out war-whoops, sometimes they actually (until the practice was banned) carried homemade tomahawks on their packs or on their belts. Some came down the gangplank with feathers sticking out of their campaign hats! American soldiers didn't really have to do much to reinforce the French beliefs, as the French spread the legend of the "giants from America" the length and breadth of France, by word of mouth and in the public media. At each telling, the Americans got larger. And, it goes without saying, that the exuberant Americans played the roll to the hilt. Nevertheless, the arriving Americans detected a certain amount of disappointment on the part of the French. They found out later that the French expected the Americans to be seven feet tall and wearing long beards!

The American doughboy enjoyed a healthy diet, and was (except for the city boys) used to hard work in the fresh-air, and he got plenty of exercise. The smaller city boys didn't arrive in France until later on when the National Army divisions began to arrive. The initial American divisions which arrived in France were composed of the `cream of the American crop' of men, tall, rangy, well-built, and, according to the mademoiselles, very good looking. The French were always remarking on the healthy complexions and the excellent teeth of the Americans.
The men of the AEF were always amazed at the sheer muscular strength of the French soldiers. Doughboys would stand amazed while watching the shorter, more squat French soldiers march by with their great, heavy overcoats on, carrying their jumble of accoutrements on their backs in the form of pots and pans, a large pack, extra hobnailed shoes, his Adrian-style helmet perched jauntily on his head, his `pinard' bottle, and the ubiquitous pipe stuck in his mouth. The doughboys didn't envy the poilu carrying h is long, heavy Lebel rifle with the needle-like "Rosalie" bayonet. Through all of this, the doughboy always commented that, through his thick moustaches and beard, the poilu of France almost always had a smile and a greeting for the Americans. etc. It was constantly remarked by the Americans that the French marching gait was short and choppy, so that the soldier wouldn't topple over because of his offset center of gravity. The French soldier carried his load of seventy to ninety pounds everyplace that he went. The Americans had a saying that the French soldier "could march all night and fight all day." The Americans also remarked that they would probably desert their own army if they were forced to carry the enormous load of the French soldiery, which, in the words of the AEF, "was only fit for a mule." The Americans stood in absolute awe of the indefatigable, seemingly tireless French soldier. They also had a saying that the French Army would not fight any more because it had worn itself to a frazzle carrying those enormous loads all over France for four long years.

Of the two soldiers, the Frenchman was evidently the more physically powerful man, despite his shorter stature. The average French soldier was from the countryside, was an ex-farmer, and one who did not have the advantage of power-machines on the farm. Every iota of the hard work he did was by the sweat of his brow and the labor of his back. This all added up to a physically strong soldier.

The French populace was astounded at the capacity of the seemingly ever-hungry Americans to devour food. The already impoverished French had a very difficult time feeding themselves properly, let alone the always ravenously hungry American soldiers. French meals are (even today) much smaller than what the average American is used to. This was also true in 1918.

American doughboys were heartily weary of the unimaginative and barely digestible food served by army cooks. Their diet usually consisted of beans, "Canned Willy" (Argentine beef that was already rancid when it was processed), hardtack biscuits and/or French bread, and an evil concoction called "slum." The hardtack and the bread were both so hard that one practically had to stomp on it to break it up. The Americans felt that their cooks were stuck in time, someplace between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.

When the Americans came into town, they would order gigantic omelets made of dozens of "oofs" and have the French women cook whatever else was at hand. They would literally eat a town out of food, and then go scrounging around the local countryside for more eggs, ducks, chickens, pigs, vegetables, anything that could be boiled, baked, barbecued, or eaten raw. And they would pay some absolutely outrageous prices for all of what they ate. Big men have equally big appetites. The AEF is still remembered in France as being an army of the heartiest eaters the French had ever encountered.

The doughboys of the AEF did not have to show their hatchets or put on their war bonnets to prove that the were indeed a race of born and bred warrior-giants; they proved all of that and more on the battlefields of France. They are now just about all into that Valhalla reserved for them. Most of them are still shouting -- "Lets Go!" or "When do we eat?"- the two favorite cries of the inimitable doughboys of the AEF. And, they are surely asking one another the inimitable question of, "What outfit, buddy?" God bless them all, wherever they are now. And, wherever they are now, the `doughboy' and the French poilu probably have their arms around each others shoulders as they march along in eternal camaraderie, each probably singing some bawdy verse of ‘Mademoiselle from Armentieres,’ or ‘Hinky-dinky, parlay-voos.’

 

Copyright July 2004 by David C. Homsher.

Address; 85 Tilton Avenue, # 4, San Mateo, CA 94401.  Tel. (650) 347-6073.  E-mail: dch39456@sbcglobal.net