Winter VII. English cooking + Yanks

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: Winter VI. Tea

English cooking

One has heard much condemnation of the English kitchen... The class which provides our servants is undeniably course and stupid, and its handiwork of every kind too often bears the native stamp. For all that, English victuals are, in quality, the best in the world, and English cookery is the wholesomest and the most appetizing known to any temperate clime.

... The aim of English cooking is so to deal with the raw material of man’s nourishment as to bring out, for the healthy palate, all its natural juices and savours... Our beef is veritably beef; at its best, such beef can be eaten in no other country under the sun... It never occurs to us to disguise the genuine flavor of food... Only English folk know what is meant by gravy....

Alpha.

As someone who has been a vegetarian for over 40 years, and ate very little “English” cooking while in Britain in the 1980s, I certainly can’t speak to this. But I did eat meat through high school and it isn’t convincing that he praises boiling cod and mutton.

Yanks to the rescue.

The initial U.S. troops arriving in Europe in October 1917 closely resembled the BEF of 1914, they were the few regular Army divisions and Marine formations then ready, more or less, for combat. These units (the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th infantry divisions) are familiar names in the military history of the United Sstates for the rest of the 20th and the early 21st centuries. However U.S. forces didn't start fighting until April of 1918 after their training was more advanced. By Summer, the previously mentioned units plus the 26th, 32nd, 33rd, and 42nd (all National Guard) divisions, and the 5th and 6th Marine regiments, were involved in resisting the big German offensive of 1918.  

At first there weren’t enough men to even form an independent American army on the entrenched line of battle. The Americans were attached to French armies as reinforcements. By late summer these initial units were joined by the 5th, 82nd, and 90th divisions, so Pershing, the American commander, was able to form the First (U.S.) Army. Colonel Douglas MacArthur fought with the 42nd division during the mid-summer Aisne-Marne offensive. Lieutenant Colonel George S. Patton lead 270 (Renault) tanks during the St Michel offensive, while Colonel "Billy" Mitchell commanded a force of 1,500 aircraft supporting that ground attack.

By the end of the war on 11/11/18, there were two U.S. Armies in the field as more and more men arrived in France from America. To the units mention above had been added the 28th, 29th, 35th, 37th, 77th, 79th, 80th, 81st, infantry divisions -- and that's an incomplete list. The war ended before the full might of U.S. strength could be employed in the field. (Another reason Christopher and Mark Tiejens were so disgusted by the Armistice, that the war wasn’t pursued into Germany itself.)

The U.S. Navy also reinforced the U.K. Grand Fleet after 7 December 1917 with Battleship Division Nine (4-5 battleships). These ships helped enforce the blockade of Germany until the end of the war. 

Next: Winter VIII. Second course....