der
actual war conditions.

So it was that the French war department turned over to the Americans
this artillery training ground which had been long vacant. Three
American artillery regiments, the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh, comprising
the first U. S. Artillery Brigade, began training at this post.

The barracks had been long unoccupied and much preparatory work was
necessary before our artillerymen could move in. Much of this work
devolved upon the shoulders of the Brigade Quartermaster.

The first difficulty that he encountered was the matter of illumination
for the barracks, mess halls and lecture rooms. All of the buildings
were wired, but there was no current. The Quartermaster began an
investigation and this was what he found:

The post had been supplied with electricity from a generating plant
located on a river about ten miles away. This plant had supplied
electrical energy for fifteen small French towns located in the
vicinity. The plant was owned and operated by a Frenchman, who was
about forty years old. The French Government, realising the necessity
for illumination, had exempted this man from military service, so that
he remained at his plant and kept the same in operation for the benefit
of the camp at Valdahon and the fifteen small towns nearby.

Then the gossips of the countryside got busy. These people began to say
that Monsieur X, the operator of the plant, was not patriotic, in other
words, that he was a slacker for not being at the front when all of
their menfolk had been sent away to the war.

Now it so happened that Monsieur X was not a slacker, and his
inclination had always been to get into the fight with the Germans, but
the Government had represented to him that it was his greater duty to
remain and keep his plant in operation to provide light for the
countryside.

When the talk of the countryside reached Monsieur X's ears, he being a
country-loving Frenchman was infuriated. He denounced the gossips as
being unappreciative of the great sacrifice he had been making for their
benefit, and, to make them realise it, he decided on penalising them.

Monsieur X simply closed down his plant, locked and barred the doors and
windows, donned his French uniform and went away to the front to join
his old regiment. That night those villagers in the fifteen nearby
towns, who had been using electrical illumination, went to bed in the
dark.

It required considerable research on the part of the Artiller