It is tempting to assume that the Field Service drivers of WWI were medical personnel who, protected by the Geneva Convention, were neutral pacifists. They were neither. The "red cross" announced them as "non-combatants." But as drivers for the French Army and witnesses of suffering, these "young adventurers" were soon ready to give their "all and everything to France" as best they could. For some, that meant moving on from ambulances....to aeroplanes!
The epic and heroic quality of France's whole history, and especially of that chapter of which we were eye-witnesses, the quenchless spirit and unfaltering will of her people, the democracy, the comradeship, and above all, the calm, unboasting, matter-of-fact courage of her troops, kindled something akin to veneration in all of us. The Field Service motto was, "Tous et tout pour la France." We all felt it. We all meant it. It is forever ours.
A. Piatt Andrew, "The Field Service and France", in History of the American Field Service in France, "Friends of France," 1914-1917, Told by its Members. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1920. Volume I.
American drivers soon became completely identified with their hosts, the French Army...
Two aspects of this exodus of hundreds of young Americans to the service of the Allies are of especial interest---first, the motives that lay behind their action, and, secondly, the effects of their participation in the great conflict. A deep humanitarian impulse gave quick response to Mr. Hoover's appeal for Americans to go to the assistance of the Belgians, and was of course the force behind all of the activities of the American Red Cross. A pure love of adventure, however, an irresistible desire to take some active part in the greatest war in the history of the world, was without doubt a compelling motive in many instances. It was with this desire that scores of young college men became ambulance drivers in France. Many of them, however, after witnessing the effects of the German methods of waging war and the heroic sacrifices which the French were making in defense of their fair land, sought entrance into branches of the French or English service where they could make their presence felt to greater military advantage.
Edwin Morse "Introduction" in the Vanguard of American Volunteers, New York: Scribner's, 1919.
Some Field Service volunteers would do more than drive ambulances.
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1916 Flying combat airplanes for the Lafayette Escadrille |
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1917 Driving transport trucks for the Réserve Mallet |
