The call goes back for artillery—And at night for the rolling kitchens—The staff interferes with sleep—Our part meant no stopping—Keeping at the roads during the night—Montfaucon on the second day—Then drive for the whale-back—Enemy resistance holds our exhaustion—Settling down in the rain to slow progress.
The call goes back for artillery—And at night for the rolling kitchens—The staff interferes with sleep—Our part meant no stopping—Keeping at the roads during the night—Montfaucon on the second day—Then drive for the whale-back—Enemy resistance holds our exhaustion—Settling down in the rain to slow progress.
Moving on their feet, with each man's course his road through the trench system and across the country beyond, the infantrymen, as they hourly increased their distance ahead of the part of the army moving on wheels, were calling oftener for artillery than for reserves. They needed shells to destroy machine-gun nests, to silence enemy batteries, and to make barrages to support their farther advance as resistance began to develop. There were equally urgent appeals for machine-gun battalions to meet the German machine-gun opposition in kind. Their spray of bullets, in indirect fire over the heads of the men in a charge, was another form of shield, the more desired when the protection of the artillery was lacking.
The machine-gunners, who called themselves the "Suicide Club," were soldiers both of the wheeland the foot. Their light carts did not have to wait on the stout passageway over the trench system which even the light artillery required. Yet some of them had been marooned, to their inexpressible disgust; for it was their part in an emergency to press on to the firing line through the shell-fire which may sweep the roads back of the infantry. The place of the artillery was as near the actual front as orders and traffic jams would permit.
How the artillery chafed on the leash! Not only duty but the gunner's promised land was beyond the barrier of the trench system which stayed his progress. Open warfare called to him from the free sweep of the landscape. The seventy-fives had come into their own again as mobile living units which would unlimber in the fields close behind the moving infantry, instead of playing the part of coast artillery behind fortifications. There would be no need to bother about camouflage. They would move about so rapidly that the enemy could not locate them; or if he did—well, that was all in the game. Their protection and the protection of the infantry would be in the blasts overwhelming the enemy's fire.
"Why in ——" the infantry was calling to the artillery. "Why in ——" the artillery was calling to the engineers. You may fill out the blank space of this cry of mutually dependent units with the kindof language which was not supposed to be, but sometimes was, used in the presence of chaplains. The infantry changed the object of their impatience when night stopped them wherever the end of that long day's work found them. They were not thinking of supporting artillery fire for the moment. The late September air was chill, the ground where they lay was cold. Their appetites were prodigious from their hard marching and fighting. Their hearts and thought were in their stomachs. Wasn't it the business of rolling kitchens to furnish them warm meals? It was past supper-time. Where in —— were those rolling kitchens? After dark they surely need not be held back in apprehension of being seen by the enemy's artillery.
Night had laid its supreme camouflage over all the area of operations. Under its mantle an activity as intense as that of the day must continue for all who supported the infantry. We might take an account of stock. Regimental, battalion, and company officers might move about freely along the front in familiarizing themselves with the situations of their commands.Liaisonwhich had been broken between different units must be re-established. The ground ahead must be scouted. Platoons and companies which had become mixed with their neighbors, and individual men who had strayed from their units, must be sorted out and returned. Gapsin the line must be filled; groups that had become "bunched" must be deployed; groups whose initiative had carried them forward to exposed points might have to be temporarily withdrawn,—all by feeling their way in the darkness. The sound of machine-gun fire broke the silence at intervals as the watchful enemy detected our movements. A shadowy approaching figure, who the men hoped was the welcome bearer of that warm meal from the rolling kitchens, might turn out to be an officer who directed that they stumble about in woods and ravines to some other point, or creep forward in the clammy dew-moist grass with a view to improving our "tactical dispositions," which does not always improve the human dispositions of those who have to carry out the orders.
Army Headquarters wanted information from the three Corps Headquarters. Each Corps wanted information from its three Division Headquarters, which in turn were not modest in asking questions of the weary fellows at the front. Exactly where was your line? What was the morale of the men? Were they receiving ammunition and food? When would the guns be up? What identifications of the enemy forces in your sector? Had many machine-gun nests been located? Was the enemy fortifying, and where? What was the character of his shell-fire? The high command had to consider thecorps summaries of the answers in relation to its own news from other sources, communications from the French staff, reports from Army aviation and artillery, conjectures of the enemy's strength and probable intentions, and the general situation of transport in the Army area and the flow of supplies from the rear.
The lack of information on some points was no more puzzling than the abundance of contradictory information on others. Staff heads must work into the small hours of the morning. They might rest after they had arranged their program for the morrow. The men at the front who were to carry it out were supposed to rest at night to refresh themselves for another effort at dawn. This was a kindly paternal thought, but how, even in the period of daylight saving, they were to find the time for sleep in the midst of re-forming their line and answering all those questions was not indicated. Whether they slept or not, whether their shields and food were up or not, they were supposed to fight from dawn to dusk on the 27th.
Our army, though our situation perhaps warranted it, might not dig in along the new line and hold fast while it recuperated after that long first day. Other double doors from Verdun to the sea were about to be swung open; other armies must be considered. Indeed the decision in this respectwas not with our army. In a sense it was not with Marshal Foch, for the forces which he had set in motion to carry out his great plan had already prescribed our part, as we know. On September 28th the Franco-Belgians were to attack in Flanders, and Mangin's army was to move on Malmaison; on the 29th the Anglo-French armies, including our Second Corps, were to storm the Hindenburg line in the Cambrai-St.-Quentin sector; on September 30th Berthelot was to free Rheims from the west; and on October 3rd, Gouraud, with our 2nd Division, was to storm the old trench system east of Rheims. We must hold off reserves from their fronts. The more determined were our attacks, the more ground we gained on the way to the Lille-Metz railroad in this critical stage of Allied strategy, the more perturbed would be the enemy's councils in adjusting his combinations to deal with the other offensives. Though it might have been better for us to have taken two or three days in which to gather and reorganize deliberately our forces for another powerful rush which would have been a corresponding shock to the enemy, this was no more in the psychology than in the calculations of the moment. We were winning; we meant to keep up the winning spirit of our army. What we had done one day we should do the next. We and not the Germans must take possession of the commanding position of Montfauconas the first great step in gaining the heights of the whale-back, should their resistance require delay in reaching our goal.
Leaving the account of each Corps' and division's part in its sector to future chapters, I shall conclude this chapter with the results of the fighting of our army as a whole for the succeeding days to October 1st, when we were to realize that Saint-Mihiel was the quick victory of a field maneuver compared to the realism of war at its worst in the Meuse-Argonne. When night fell on the 27th, our transport direction appreciated still more pregnantly the limitations of our roads for our deep concentrations. Each road, where it passed over the old chasms of the trenches,—where the rats now had the dugouts to themselves, and the silence of a deserted village prevailed except for the rumble of the struggling trucks over the new causeways—was pumping the blood from the veins of the by-roads to the rear, through its over-worked valves, into the spreading arterial system of the by-roads in the field of advance. Once on the other side, the drivers felt the relief of a man extricated from the pressure of a crowd at a gate, who finds himself in the open. Lights being forbidden, night was less of a blessing and more of a handicap to the transport than to the infantry. The argument that it secured the roads from observation, which might mean artillery concentrations,had little appeal to the average army chauffeur. He was not worried about shell-fire. If he had not been under it before, he was curious to know what it was like.
Darkness only made road repairs more onerous and slow. The engineers could not see to gather material or where to place it to do the most good. Unexpected difficulties appeared in the midst of the shadows of men and vehicles. The most calculating of staff heads, who wished to neglect no detail in his instructions, had not suggested that anyone connected with artillery, signals, or transport should sleep until he had overtaken the infantry, except as drivers might take cat-naps between the fitful pulsations of traffic. Men at the rear who were mere passengers waiting on others to clear the way felt a certain disloyalty if they slept in the face of the hurry call from the front.
The partisanship of the spectators "pulling" for the home team is a faint comparison with the partisanship of war, with comrades asking for more than your cheers. The cry of "Come on! Take hold here!" in the darkness would instantly awaken any man, nodding in his seat on a caisson or truck, into welcome action. Now he had a chance really to help, instead of exercising telepathic pressure on the Germans. He ceased to feel that he was a slacker. Shoulders to the wheel with the last ounceof your strength! Timbers taken out of dugouts, stones dug out of the earth with bare hands to be filled into sloughs! Break a way, make a way,—but "get there!"
As a people, when we want something done in a hurry, we are no more inclined to count the cost than to stint our efforts. Ditched trucks and caissons were the casualties of the charge of our transport, which was no less furious in spirit than that of our infantry. Moving a broken-down truck off the road of course meant delay for the trucks behind it; and it meant, too, that someone at the front would be asking in vain for the supplies that it carried. But that pitcher of milk was spilled; on to the market with other pitchers.
Anyone who thought that the going would be easy or troubles cease on the other side of the old trench system was soon disillusioned. The Germans had blown up some roads as well as bridges. Our own shells in the preliminary bombardment had made shell-craters and dropped trees as obstacles. We must not forget that for four years there had been a belt three or four miles wide beyond the old trench system from which any but army life had been excluded. No roads had been kept up except those which served a military purpose. The Germans, partly because of their rubber famine, had depended largely on light railways rather thanmotor-trucks for sending up supplies. Where they did not use a main road, it was of no interest to them how far it had fallen into disrepair. Maps did not take bad spots into account, and aërial scouting did not reveal them.
Dirt country roads had been utterly neglected. We must use them all to meet the demands of our immense force. Our heavy trucks and artillery wheels soon cut them with deep ruts. When the engineers were not on hand, each battery and convoy negotiated a passage for itself and left those in the rear to do the same. Freshets had washed out some sections, and undermined others. Embankments had fallen away into swamps, where a side-slipping truck would sink in up to its hubs. If shoulders to the wheel failed when artillery striking across fields ran into ditches and holes, snatch ropes were used.
Each convoy must locate the unit which it was serving. The rolling kitchens that had worked their way forward could not deliver their warm meals until they had found the impatiently ravenous troops. Artillery commanders must grope about for their assigned positions, or wait until they were assigned positions. They must have their ammunition as well as guns up. Officers bearing instructions from the staff were as puzzled as the recipient about their meaning, as they studied the map by the discreet flash of an electric torch, and sought toidentify landmarks shrouded in the thick night mist under the canopy of darkness. Lightly wounded men moved counter to the streams of traffic and of reserves, who might also be uncertain of their exact destination. Men with bad wounds in the body tottered across the fields and dropped by the roadside. Others who could not move must be found and brought in by searchers.
It was not surprising that some of our leaders had not yet learned to apply in the stress of action and the conflict of reports the principle that when committed to one plan it is better to go through with it than to create confusion by inaugurating another which may seem better. Half-executed orders were countermanded and changed and then changed again; and this led to trucks trying to turn round in the narrow roads, and to eddies in that confused scene of the hectic striving of each man and unit to do his part. The effect suggested a premature dress rehearsal of a play on a stage without lights, while the stage-hands were short of sets and the actors were still dependent upon reading their parts.
When morning came, few rolling kitchens indeed had reached the objective of the men's stomachs with their cargo. Our heavy artillery was still struggling in the rear. Only a portion of our light artillery was up. Where our troops were fresh on the first day, they were now already tired. TheGermans had made the most of the night. Their reserves which had arrived included the 5th Guard Division, already on the way when we began the battle. We needed our heavy artillery to pound roads and villages, and to counter artillery which the Germans had brought into action. Against the increase of German machine-guns we needed the rolling barrages of our light artillery even more than on the first day after we were through the trench system. Renewing the attack over the full length of our twenty miles of front, we were to advance with our moving shields irregularly distributed and vulnerable in most places. Any observer could see soon after daylight, in the widespread puffs of German shells on the landscape, that the inevitable had happened, as in all previous offensives. The enemy artillery had other targets than our infantry; he was laying a barrier to the infantry's support on the roads, halting the columns of traffic, forcing reserves to cover, and making new shell-holes in the roads to be filled by the transport and engineer workers.
The important thing on the second day was to take Montfaucon. On the ridges west of the town the German infantry, artillery, and machine-gunners were utilizing the positions which he had laid out months before the attack. He fought stubbornly here as in Cuisy Wood and on the hills on theleft; but buffeted as they were, our men, under firm orders to keep on attacking, conquered both systems. This cracked the shell of the Montfaucon defenses. Before noon we were in the town.
There are those who say that if we had taken Montfaucon on the first day, we might have reached the crest of the whale-back itself on the second or third day, and looked down on the apron sweeping toward the Lille-Metz railway. I fear that they belong to the school of "ifs," which may write military history in endless and self-entertaining conjecture. They forget the lack of road repairs; the lack of shields to continue the advance; and the interdictory shell-fire which the enemy laid down on the ruins of the town and on the arterial roads which center there. If we had taken Montfaucon on the first day, I think that there would still have been a number of other "ifs" between us and the crest. Of course, once we possessed Montfaucon and its adjoining heights, the enemy's infantry was not going to resist in down-hill fighting, though he harassed us with artillery and machine-gun fire as we descended the irregular slopes of the valleys beyond.
Our ambition was soaring for a decisive success on the 28th. We had been delayed a day, but we should yet carry through our daring programme. Forced optimism saw our field artillery coming up,our roads improving, our transport somewhat more systematized, and tried to forget other factors; but the fatigue of all hands was greater; the vitality of our troops was weakening for want of proper food. Our heavy artillery, and indeed some of our light artillery, was still struggling in the rear. Our artillery ammunition supply was insufficient to feed the guns all the shells they would need when dawn proved that the Germans had brought up still more artillery on the second night. There were the heights of the whale-back before us, with the first great step in their conquest behind us. Attack was the thing, attack from the Forest's edge to the Meuse. The more time we gave the enemy, the more time he would have to fortify and bring up reserves. Necessity accepted no excuses from subordinate commanders. Drive, and again drive; keep moving; the enemy would eventually yield. He must yield. Once we broke his resistance, then the going would be swift and easy against his shattered units.
The 28th was a critical day: the day when it was to be decided whether or not we were to fight a siege operation, or to carry the whale-back in a series of rapidly succeeding rushes,—though I think that the decision really came with the signs of developing resistance on the morning of the 27th.
Our divisions put in their fresh reserves; theywould admit no word of discouragement. Artillerymen who had been at work for two nights and two days tried to bring their guns close up to the infantry. All the remaining tanks were called into service. With the forced burst of energy which may be mistaken for "second wind," we everywhere made gains. Our right had moved along the Meuse to south of Brieulles, which with the bend of the river westward narrowed our front. On the left we had reached Exermont ravine. On the 29th we tried for Brieulles; for Gesnes; for the ravine; and for the escarpments of the Forest, points which the attack of the third day had developed as the locked doors which we must smash through to give us purchase for another general attack. There was a certain fitfulness in these efforts, as of a fire dying down blown into a spitful flame. In the trough of the Aire we were under the raging artillery fire from the heights on either side; and in the trough of the Meuse from the heights across the river and from the whale-back, which I shall describe in later chapters. In the valleys beyond Montfaucon and the neighboring heights we faced the first slopes of the whale-back, which were the covering positions for the Kriemhilde and Freya Stellungen, new trench systems utilizing all the natural strength of the heights as a main line of defense by an aroused enemy in strong force.
Our army might now take counsel of necessity, if not of prudence. In the future we must hack and stab our way. Meanwhile we must have rest for the tired troops, or we must have fresh troops, before another considerable offensive effort. A hundred millions of population at home did not mean that we had unlimited trained man-power to draw on in France. Our divisional reserves were exhausted. Replacements were not arriving in sufficient numbers to fill gaps from casualties and sickness. We were not only fighting from the Meuse to the Argonne and holding the line of our new front at Saint-Mihiel, but we had four excellent fresh divisions just going into attack in British and French offensives, not to mention our divisions in tranquil sectors. If we had had more men for the front, we could not have fed them. If we had made a farther advance, we could not have kept our artillery and transport up with the troops. We needed more motor-trucks, horses, and every kind of equipment for that insatiable maw. If we had had more transport, we should hardly have had room for it. The arterial road facilities over the old trench system were as yet unequal to caring for the number of our troops. The bottle necks could not meet the demands of the bottle. Our appetite for victory had exceeded our digestion.
Army reports which spoke of "poor visibility"referred to the morale of the men as "excellent." There was no question of the "poor visibility" or of the morale of men who were well enough to be in line, for they were always ready to fight. The chill October rains had begun. We could expect little more fair weather. When, already, one needed a heavy blanket over him in bed, our men sent into action, for mobility's sake, without blankets were shivering at night on the wet ground, not under the roof of the stars but in the penetrating cold mist which hugged the earth when it was not raining. This and the lack of proper food and of sleep brought on diarrhea, and the pitiful sight on the roads of the sick and gassed was a reminder of how quickly war may wreck the delicate human machine which takes so long to build. In a few days sturdy youth with springy steps in the pink of health had become pale and emaciated, looking ten years older as they dragged their feet in painful slowness.
Some divisions had suffered more exhaustion than others. All their reserves had been crowded in to meet an emergency. They had given to the limit of their strength in a few days, while others might spread theirs over weeks. At close quarters with the enemy we dug in, with machine-gun nests and defensive lines of our own to repulse his counter-attacks, while the message of our own piecemeal attacks,by which we sought to maintain our personal mastery over him, was: "We are only gathering our strength. This is our battle. We are coming at you again—soon." Thus established in our gains, in temporary stalemate, we might withdraw some divisions for rest. This meant fewer mouths to feed, lessening the strain on our transport. Other divisions had rest by the alternate withdrawal of regiments and brigades.
Two weeks of reconnaissance by the 33rd on the right—Surprising the enemy by charging through a swamp—Careful planning gives complete success by noon—Nothing more but build a road and wait—Two belts of woods in front of the 80th—The enemy must hold at the second belt—Which he does with enfilade artillery, gas, and a counter-attack from Brieulles—More artillery support necessary before the defenses of the town, beyond the belts, could be taken—The 4th does its first bit in workmanlike fashion—But cannot get beyond the foot of the whale-back without its stalled artillery—The Corps digs in as it can and waits.
Two weeks of reconnaissance by the 33rd on the right—Surprising the enemy by charging through a swamp—Careful planning gives complete success by noon—Nothing more but build a road and wait—Two belts of woods in front of the 80th—The enemy must hold at the second belt—Which he does with enfilade artillery, gas, and a counter-attack from Brieulles—More artillery support necessary before the defenses of the town, beyond the belts, could be taken—The 4th does its first bit in workmanlike fashion—But cannot get beyond the foot of the whale-back without its stalled artillery—The Corps digs in as it can and waits.
By the right flank, left flank, and center! Every action, whether fought by a thousand or a million men, resolves itself into these simple elements of strategic control, which is as old as war. In our Meuse-Argonne drive the right and left flanks elbowed their way down the two river valleys to the conquest of the approaches on either side of the heights of the whale-back, which the center was attacking in front. To think in these terms is to think in Corps; and to think in Corps is to think in divisions.
On the right of Bullard's Third Corps in the trough of the Meuse was the 33rd Division, Illinois National Guard. It was the first American divisionto arrive on the Meuse-Argonne line, taking September 7th-9th from a French division the sector which our whole Third Corps was later to occupy. A single American division assigned to such a broad front of quiet trenches would not arouse the enemy's suspicions that we were planning a major offensive. On the contrary, it might be an excellent mask for our battle preparations.
Thus the 33rd had two weeks of actual trench occupation in which to familiarize itself with the enemy positions. These resourceful Illinois men, who had seen much and learned much in having already served with a British, an Australian, a French, and an American Corps, were just the kind to make the most of their advantage, being naturally of an inquiring mind and not timid, though shrewd, in their methods of inquiry. Before the attack, in making room for the other two divisions of the Corps in their stealthy approach, they were side-slipped to the right, where they faced the river bottoms of the Meuse. At their back was the scarred slope of the Mort Homme, and in their sight were the other famous hills of the Verdun battle.
The mission of the 33rd was as picturesque and appealing as its surroundings. As the hinge of the whole movement, on the pivot of the river bank, it was to swing round in a half circle until its front was secured on the Meuse, at a right angle to theGerman front line on the opposite bank. This was to be accomplished by noon, after which the 33rd had only to dig in and hold fast. My reference elsewhere to the difficulty of maneuvering troops even in face of no opposition particularly applies to this sweeping right wheel. There was the Forges brook, as well as the trench systems to cross. On the right of the line was the Forges Wood, and on the left was the Juré Wood, which gave cover for machine-guns, if they were not overcome, to play a flanking fire on the center. Forges Wood was the real problem. Its machine-gun nests were protected by formidable defenses where the Germans thought them necessary. At other points they depended upon morasses which they thought impassable; and they knew the river bottoms thoroughly as their avenue of advance in their repeated attacks for the mastery of the Mort Homme in the Verdun battle. However, the inquiring Illinois men made their own investigations most thoroughly, if covertly, without accepting the reputation of German thoroughness as a guarantee that there were no openings.
As a result they not only disagreed with the German view, but took counsel of their conviction in strategy which was to lull the enemy in his own conviction of his security and of their amateurishness. They had time to work out the plan by thorough instruction in every detail. In the first stage of theadvance they had to descend a steep slope and cross the Forges brook. There they were to halt on a road on the other side of No Man's Land, to form up for the final act any units that had been delayed or become mixed. Being an accurate, card-index kind of division, the 33rd's records show that the road was reached in fifty-seven minutes, and that at the end of twenty minutes every man was in his place according to schedule.
With the left regiment swinging past the Forges Wood, this might have exposed its flank, if the action of the right had not been properly timed; for everything depended upon each unit carrying out its part in the team-work punctually. Charging up to their hips in slime and up to their necks in water, the Illinois men proved that the swamps were not impassable. They took duckboards from the trenches and threw them over the stretches of barbed wire which protected the Wood where the swamps did not. Just as the defenders of the Wood were turning their machine-guns on the targets on their flanks, the right regiment "jumped" them in front. This gave them an opportunity for to-the-death resistance by firing in two directions; but they were too confused in the shattering of all their preconceptions to make use of it in face of those mud-plastered Americans springing bolt into their midst. They yielded readily. The swinging left had putthe Juré Wood behind it, and, with only broken elements of the enemy now in its path, the 33rd had its whole line on the bank at noon. The right hinge of the Army secure, the maneuver had been so beautifully made and it was such a complete success that it attracted less attention than if the division had been obliged to endure the very hard fighting which skill and foresight had prevented.
As the booty of its swift combing advance, the 33rd had taken 1,450 German prisoners, who wondered just what had happened to them and why, and seven 6-inch howitzers, two 110-millimeter guns, twenty pieces of field artillery, not to mention some trench mortars, fifty-seven machine-guns, a light railway, and a well-stocked engineer depot. The 33rd's own loss was 2 officers and 34 men killed, and 2 officers and 205 men wounded, and not a single man missing. To put it in another way, this division with its fondness for figures as the real test of military prowess, had captured nearly six Germans for every casualty of its own. This was certainly waging thrifty and profitable war.
In the matter of traffic, too, the 33rd with characteristic self-reliance proceeded to look after itself. General Bell, who had a pungent common sense, knew his men when he set them to paddling their own canoe. When congestion on the Béthincourt road, assigned to both the 33rd and the 80th Divisions,prompted the thought of making a road of his own, he did not take up the question with Corps, which, as this was not in the original plan, might ask the views of Army on the suggestion. A young engineer might be sent out to make an investigation. He might consider the danger of drawing fire, and other factors. Then he might return to Corps for further consultation. After this another young engineer might be sent out to superintend the construction. Before Corps knew anything about it, and in the time that procrastinating counsel might have occupied, the Illinois men, who did not need anyone to show them how to build a road while they had spades and elbow-grease, had one completed right over the Mort Homme.
With its transport moving in good order and with its objectives taken, the 33rd might say, in the language which it had learned in training at the British front, "We've finished our job, and we're feeling quite comfortable, thank you." Except to put in a brigade to relieve the 80th and join up with the 4th Division—which was no small exception to the brigade—the 33rd had nothing further to do until, on the strength of the way it had carried out its mission of the 26th, it was ordered to cross the Meuse on October 8th in order to stop some of the flanking fire from the other bank—which belongs to another chapter.
Cronkhite's 80th, or "Blue Ridge" National Army Division, which was the center division of the Third Corps, was also to swing toward the Meuse, and had farther to go, though the Meuse bends inward toward its line of advance. According to the Army plan, the 80th was to have only one day's intensive fighting and swift advancing. On the night of the 26th the narrowing front of attack was to "squeeze" it out. Immediately ahead of them the Blue Ridge men had two miles of open hilly country, which facilitated maintaining their formations. Beyond this was a series of woods forming practically a belt, which offered cover at every point for machine-gun nests. Better still for the enemy's purpose in holding up a persistent attack—of the kind the Blue Ridge men were under orders to make and would make—beyond this, separated by another open space, was another belt of woods. When hard pressed in the first belt, the enemy could withdraw to the second, where his machine-guns would have another free field of fire.
The Blue Ridge men were not abashed by hills and woods. They had been brought up among hills and woods. After breaking through the trench system in a clean sweep, by noon they were in the first belt of woods, though they had flanking fire from the Juré Wood on their right. They were up to schedule no less than the 33rd; but they hadhad only an introduction to what was in store for them. With the left of the intrenched 33rd as their pivot, they must take the second belt of woods between them and the river. On the river bank was the town of Brieulles, where they were supposed to rest their left when the task was finished. Brieulles did not appear to be far away on the map; but we were to be a long time in taking it.
Fortunately the engineers—who deserve much credit for this—had a bridge over the Forges brook by nine in the morning for the artillery. This was good news to men looking across the open into the recesses of that second belt of woods, which appeared as peaceful from that distance as a patch in the Shenandoah valley. In a race against time—with the schedule burned into every officer's brain—the 80th could not wait for all the guns to come up. In the attack at three in the afternoon the front line of the division moved forward with drill-ground precision and the confidence of its morning's success.
Since the 80th's movement had stopped at noon, the enemy had had three hours in which to prepare his reception of the charge. In a sense the success of the 33rd was a handicap to the 80th that afternoon. It aroused the enemy to the gravity of his situation along the Meuse. His remnants of units retreating before the 33rd were swinging round infront of the 80th; reserves had been hurried across the river and from Brieulles. By this time our plan was revealed to him along our whole front. The loss of more river bank had an important tactical relation to his defense of Montfaucon and the covering positions of the whale-back, toward which our Fifth Corps in the center was advancing rapidly. If he could hold his ground from the river bank to Cuisy, he might have our center in a salient. His determination to hold it blazed out from that soft carpet of green in cruel machine-gun fire, raking the open spaces. His artillery on the opposite bank of the Meuse, as well as on the near bank behind the second belt of woods and around Brieulles, opened fire immediately our charge developed under its observation. Undaunted, the Blue Ridge men pressed on across the open toward the machine-gun nests in the edge of the second belt, as toward a refuge in a storm. They took these, only to find that more machine-guns were echelonned in the recesses of the woods. Gas as well as high-explosive shells were falling in the first belt and at points where our reserves were concentrated. In openings or narrow stretches of the second belt where units were able to drive through, they looked out on more open spaces under command of machine-guns from ridges and thickets, while right and left any unit whose courage or opportunity had carried it too farwas caught in enfilade by the fire of machine-guns which had not been mopped up.
That night the 80th had its right up with the 33rd's intrenched left on the river. Its brave accomplishment on the remainder of its front was best measured by the powerful resistance it had met. The division, which was to have been squeezed out by the narrowing front, had to remain in line because the front had not been narrowed, after far harder fighting than it had anticipated. Transport congestion on the road which the 33rd as well as the 80th was still using was extreme. If the Blue Ridge men could not bring their supplies up by wheel they might by hand. Carrying parties brought up food and small arms ammunition by fording the brook past the stalled trucks.
There could be no question about the character of the next day's fighting. The enemy was serving notice of it throughout the night. The 80th's line needed re-forming. Its commander did not mean to send his sturdy, willing, lithe men to slaughter in the fulness of their youthful energy and ambition. They must have artillery protection. Their divisional artillery, operating with the division for the first time, required daylight for going into position and mastering its problems of fire in a task which was both beyond its strength and complicated, as was all the other detail of preparing for the attack,by the terrific enemy artillery fire spread from the roads in the rear to the front line.
The shells from the German field-pieces were "small potatoes" compared to the "big fellows" that were arriving in increasing numbers. As the men listened to the scream of the large calibers and studied their bursts, they learned that these were coming not only from the front but from both sides. Enfilade machine-gun fire is bad enough, but enfilade artillery fire is still harder to bear. You may at least charge the machine-guns, but you cannot charge the distant unseen powers hurling high-explosive shells into your flank.
The Borne de Cornouiller, or Hill 378, which I took pains to describe in a previous chapter, was now having its first of many innings at the expense of the Third Corps at its feet in the trough of the Meuse. This bald height on the other side of the river looked across the river bottoms and the rising valley walls to the heights of the whale-back. If the observers on the Borne de Cornouiller saw a target which their guns could not reach, they signaled its location to the whale-back, which might have it in range; and the observers of the whale-back were responsively courteous. This accounted for the cross artillery fire which for weeks was to knife our men of the Third Corps with the wickedness of assassin's thrusts in the ribs.
From Hill 378 the 80th Division's movement of troops, guns, and transport in the open was almost as visible through powerful glasses as people in the streets below from a church steeple. As the 33rd was already dug in and could advance no farther except by crossing the river, the 80th was convinced that it was receiving as a surplus the allotment from over the Meuse which otherwise might have been sent against the Illinois men. A measure of the increase of artillery fire is given in the Third Corps report, which estimates that the enemy sent 65,000 shells into its area on the 27th, compared to 5,000 on the 26th. Against this long-range fire the 80th's divisional artillery was as helpless as against falling meteors. The Blue Ridge men must endure the deluge with philosophic fatalism. Their own gunners could only give them barrages, and concentrate on machine-gun nests and such field battery positions as were located.
The deadly accuracy of the enemy's artillery fire, its wide distribution, blasting holes in the roads, loosing on infantry as it deployed, on convoys of artillery ammunition, and raking our front-line positions, only made it more important that the next attack should be well delivered and in force. So it was. At one in the afternoon, under the barrage of their artillery, trench mortars, and machine-guns which they had forced through to the front, the BlueRidge men, with a dash worthy of the traditions of their fathers in the Civil War, gained their objectives, except on the left, where the 4th Division was having troubles of its own of a kind which the 80th could fully appreciate.
Though in the second belt of woods, the 80th was not yet to be squeezed out. There was Brieulles to be taken yet, and the German reinforcements which were rapidly arriving required more attention than the other divisions of the Corps could spare from their own fronts. The German command decided that it was time that these Americans had a taste of offensive tactics themselves. Fresh German troops, advancing from Brieulles on the third morning, delivered a sharp counter-attack; but the Blue Ridge men had no patience with any attempt to drive them back from the ground they had won. They were of the "sticking" kind, as their forefathers had been. It was a joyous business, repulsing that counter-attack to the accompaniment of such yells as Union soldiers associated with Confederate ferocity. It was enlightening, too, in that it showed both them and their adversaries what a difference there is between charging machine-guns and using them to stop a charge.
This incident of the German counter-attack—and the Blue Ridge men made it an incident—was a fillip for the defenders as they sprang up for their ownattack, which began at 7.15, soon after the Germans were in flight. The object was to advance the left flank, which had been held up the preceding day, into Brieulles. The 80th's artillery concentrated on hills 227 and 281, which commanded the town, and the town itself, which is at a sharp bend of the river. It happened that the Germans were even more interested in holding Brieulles than on the preceding day. The low ground around it held a semi-circle of machine-gun positions. While the long-range artillery fire from flanking heights was heavier than before on the 80th's area, German field-guns on the other side of the river from Brieulles had the special mission of protecting the town.
From the start the fighting was furious and at close quarters. The 80th made some headway in the morning, re-formed, and renewed its effort in the afternoon. Again and again parties attempted to rush the crest of 281, which not only commanded the town but was linked up with the town and the river bend in the tactical defense of the whale-back, which, after the taking of Montfaucon, the Fifth Corps was approaching in front. The ground before Brieulles was impassable. The valor of tired men had done all it could under sniping of machine-guns and all calibers of artillery. Before we could take Brieulles, we must have more guns and develop a better method of approach. In holding it the Germansmight find some compensation for the loss of an engineer dump, estimated to be worth millions, which the 80th had taken.
Sent in for one day's fighting, the division had fought for three days. Now it was withdrawn according to the original plan; but this did not mean that it was to go into rest. It was dog-weary, though not exhausted. When a brigade from the 33rd, which had been busy fortifying the river bank and sending patrols across the river, and generally keeping its irrepressible hand in, took over the 80th's front, the 80th's artillery was kept in the sector, one infantry regiment remained with the 4th in action, and the other three regiments were marched away as reserves for the 37th Division, which, after throwing in all its strength in conquering the deep Montfaucon Wood, was expecting a counter-attack by the enemy to recover a position which was vital in that area to his defense of the whale-back. As we had kept him too busy with our attacks for the counter-attack to materialize, the three regiments of the 80th had only the experience of that marching and counter-marching by which alarms and changing dispositions wear out shoe-leather and patience in the course of a mighty battle. The Blue Ridge men had advanced six miles, taking 850 prisoners and 16 guns, with a loss of 1,064 men in killed and wounded, as the introductory part ofthe service which they were to perform in the Meuse-Argonne.
As the one regular division in line, the tried 4th, on the left of the Third Corps, would hardly be given the short end of the stick. There was no road in its sector. Once its transport was across the trench system, it had to switch back from the sector of the neighboring 79th Division to its own. This was a handicap characteristic of the stern problem of the 4th, which, if it failed, would set a bad example for inexperienced divisions.
Being forewarned of what was expected of his regulars, General Hines was forearmed in his prevision. Recognizing the miserable character of the Esnes-Malancourt road which the division was to use, the engineers of the 4th began work on its improvement early in the evening of the 25th before the battle began. In common with the two other divisions of the Corps, the 4th had to cross the Forges brook. Its left flank, inliaisonwith the 79th, faced the height of Cuisy, which was a flanking approach to the Montfaucon heights, and its right the practically continuous system of woods which joined up with those in front of the 80th. Thus it was a link between the swinging movement to the Meuse and the main drive, the mission of its left being to help force the evacuation of Montfaucon,and of its right to occupy the bank of the Meuse from Brieulles north to Sassey.
The whole command was keyed up to great things when with a yell the men went over the top in the thick mist on the morning of the 26th. If not regular in the old sense, they took pride in being professional in skill, though most of the young officers, as in other regular divisions, were from the training camps. They did not belong to any part of the country. They were not National Guard or National Army, but just fighting soldiers who belonged to all America. Discipline was strict in this division. Its spirit of corps was in the conviction of its rigid efficiency. With hardly a waver in its methodical progress it had reached the Corps objective by 12.30. There it dug in, waiting until 5.30 for the division on its left, which was the keystone of the movement, to come up. Then the men rose again and went forward without any artillery support, only to meet what the divisions right and left were meeting in the rapidly stiffening German machine-gun defense, and to call for shields against murderous odds.
In their road-making across the brook and the trench systems the engineers had used 40,000 sand-bags. Early in the afternoon they had a passageway which permitted of the slow passage of transport between intervals of filling in the ruts cut bythe heavy trucks; but two divisions, in the section of the line where the farthest advance was expected, were limited to road facilities inadequate for one. It can only be said that if it had not been for the diligence of the engineers the situation would have been even worse.
The failure of the center to reach Montfaucon on the 26th had an intimate concern with the plans of the 4th the next day, when the positive orders for its capture required that the 4th should attack without its artillery, which was still laboring to get forward. From 7.30 until darkness, without their shields against the increasing artillery and machine-gun fire, the men continued their workmanlike advance. Didn't they belong to the 4th, which was as good as the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, Regulars? When night came they had behind them the heights around Montfaucon. They had gone through Brieulles Wood. They were also in the south edge of the Fays Wood, but when they tried to dig in there the machine-gun and shell-fire was too deadly to be endured. They had to fall back to the slope of 295.
Still their artillery was not up; still the order was to attack; and they attacked the next morning. The Germans attacked also; and were held. We were now against the strong covering positions on the slopes of the summit of the whale-back, where theGermans were organizing their Kriemhilde main line of defense. During the remaining days of September, the 4th cleaned up the Brieulles Wood, made itself secure in its defenses, and kept harassing the enemy with patrols. On the night of the 28th its artillery had arrived, though traffic congestion limited its ammunition supply, which it needed in great quantities to counter the enemy's artillery fire as well as his machine-gun nests. It was in range of many of the guns from the east bank of the Meuse which were so mercilessly harassing the 80th, and of course was receiving an immense volume of shells from all the heights of the whale-back. The division was short of supplies and it was tired, but there could be no thought of taking it out. It was to remain in line in a tug-of-war with the enemy until it took part in the general attack of October 4th, being all the while under that raking cross artillery fire that made the Corps sector a hell night and day.
Contemptuous in their security, the observers from Hill 378, the Borne de Cornouiller, continued to exchange notes with the observers on the heights of the whale-back, as they looked down on the amphitheater, peering for targets into the wrinkles of the uneven landscape and soaking the woods which we occupied with gas. Our only hope of protection was to find ravines deep enough or withwalls steep enough to enable us to dig pits which could not be reached by the plunging fire from three directions. These German gunners knew the roads which we must take at night in order to move our supplies to the front; the villages where our transport might halt; and the location or probable location of our batteries, while theirs were hidden. If we wheeled to attack to the right or left, we received shells in the back as well as in front. The first day of the battle, when the Corps had fired 80,000 shells against the Germans' 5,000, became the mockery of a halcyon past in face of the concentrations which now pounded the Corps from sources to which we could not respond with anything like equivalent power.
If the men of the Corps who had to endure this plunging fire had heard the name of the Borne de Cornouiller, they would probably have called it "Corned Willy," the sobriquet which naturally came to the lips of our soldiers, who eventually conquered it on rations of cold corned beef. But they knew only that shells were coming from three quarters of the compass, while they asked "why in ——" our artillery did not silence the German artillery. The answer was that our artillery could not, until the Borne de Cornouiller and the whale-back were taken, which was not to be for another month. The Third Corps was to keep on tryingfor that town of Brieulles, while it kept on fighting in that wicked river trough, to support the attacks in the center. There was no use of growling. The thing had to be borne.
German comfort in the Forest retreats—The 77th see-sawing through—The 28th plowing down the trough of the Aire—Scaling the escarpments of the Chêne Tondu and Taille l'Abbé—An enemy counter-attack—The 35th pushing four miles down the east wall of the Aire—Pushing through an alley to the untenable position of Exermont—Unjust reflections on the persistence of the 35th.
German comfort in the Forest retreats—The 77th see-sawing through—The 28th plowing down the trough of the Aire—Scaling the escarpments of the Chêne Tondu and Taille l'Abbé—An enemy counter-attack—The 35th pushing four miles down the east wall of the Aire—Pushing through an alley to the untenable position of Exermont—Unjust reflections on the persistence of the 35th.
On the left flank the First Corps, composed of the 77th, 28th, and 35th Divisions, was having quite as hard fighting as the Third Corps on the right flank. The regiment of the 92nd Division (colored), National Army, forming the link with the French on the western edge of the Argonne Forest, buffeted in its inexperience by the intricacies of attack through the maze of trenches, was withdrawn after its initial service. It was better that the 77th should take its place in meeting the baffling requirements ofliaisonbetween two Allied armies.
In the trench system before the Forest, the "Liberty" men of the 77th met comparatively slight resistance, their chief trouble being to maintain the uniformity of their advance through the fortifications and across the shell-craters, over the trickyground of sharp ridges and gullies littered with torn tree-trunks and limbs. The division staff had in vain sought opportunities for flanking maneuvers. A straight frontal attack must be made. "There's the Forest. Go through it!" paraphrases the simple orders of the division commander. This put the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the young platoon and company commanders. They knew that they could depend upon one thing. There was nothing but forest ahead of them. They need not concern themselves with any open fields, though they would have their share of swamps and ravines, which would not lessen the difficulty of keeping their units in line through the thickets.
If the French "scalloping" on the left of the Forest, and the 28th Division "scalloping" on the right of the Forest, did not drive in their protecting wedges, a cross-fire would hold the 77th's flanks back while its center, driving ahead, would be caught between the infantry and machine-gun fire from the Germans on either flank. If the French and the 28th fully succeeded in their mission, then, as we already know, all the 77th would have to do would be to "mop up" any Germans who failed to withdraw in time from the pressure on either side. According to this plan the 77th was to have an easy time. The plan failing to work out, the 77th had anything but an easy time.
The Forest was held, as it frequently had been, I understand, by Landwehr troops. Some of the old fellows, who were not sturdy enough for real warfare, had spent months and even years there. They considered that they had the squatter right of occupation to the Argonne. There were theaters, rest camps, and well-appointed hospitals, with enoughverbotensigns along the paths to alleviate homesickness in a foreign land. Isolated in their peaceful solitude, where they could be cool in summer and comfortable in winter, they took the interest in adding to the comforts of their sylvan surroundings of a city man in his new place in the country. Positive artistry was achieved in the camp of the German commanding general. The walls of his office and sitting-room were wainscoted, with a snug ante-room where orderlies might attend and messengers might wait. The heating arrangements literally afforded hot water at all hours. A spacious dining-room was supplied from a commodious kitchen. If the French began putting over heavy shells, interrupting the German officers at their chess game or in reading the CologneGazette, it was only a few steps to a stairway that led to an electric-lighted chamber so deep in the earth that it was perfectly safe from a direct hit by the largest calibers.
All the headquarters and camps were undercanopies of foliage which screened them from aërial detection. Battalions come here from the death and filth and misery of violent sectors settled down to a holiday existence in an environment associated with a vacation woods. Of course there was a war in progress, but they knew it only through sending out detachments to keep watch and maintain the trenches in repair. The Landwehr men saw enough shell-bursts to say that they had been under fire. Indeed, one was occasionally wounded. There was no need of trench raids for information in a mutually accepted stalemate. To fire more than enough shells to keep up the postures of war might bring retaliation which would interfere with smoking your pipe and drinking your beer at leisure.
After this pacific routine had been long established and so much effort and pains had been spent in improvements, appeared these outsiders of the Liberty Division in the rude haste that they might show in a subway station at home. They had no respect for the traditional privacy of a gentleman's country estate. However, the irritated occupants were no passive resistants. They had thought out in precise terms how they would defend their fastness against any such outrageous lawlessness. They knew every road and path, and how to make use of their ideal woodland cover. They might not be strong in thefront line, but as the military men say they were "echelonned deep."
There was no line of resistance in the first stages of the advance, but many successive points of resistance, ready to receive the invader in turn, punishing him severely in his slow progress if he were not repulsed. But even they in their chosen positions, covering avenues where the foliage was not dense, could not see far. This developed close-quarters fighting from the start.
As the Germans had particularly depended upon light railways in the Argonne, the roads, except transversal ones, had been neglected. This did not matter, so far as it concerned bringing up the artillery. There was no maneuvering artillery in the thick woods. Even if there had been, it could not get any angle of fire for shells which would burst short of their targets against tree-trunks. It was exclusively an infantry fight except for the machine-guns and the babysoixante-quinzeor 37-millimeter guns, in which the heads of the Americans bobbed through the thickets in search of the hidden heads of the defenders. A platoon commander might not keep watch of his own men in the maze—let alone see what the platoons on his flank were doing.
On the first day the 77th had practically reached its objectives, on the second it was to suffer the same loss of momentum as other divisions. The "scalloping"on the edges of the Forest, however valorous, could not keep up to schedule. If the Forest boundaries had been straight lines on a plain, the result might have been different.Liaisonover the escarpments in the valley of the Aire and the hills and ravines on the left became a nightmare. Still the orders were "Push ahead!" to battalions or companies which were not up. If under this spur they advanced beyond their flanks, then the flanks were to "push ahead!" Thus in a process of see-sawing platoons and companies continued to make progress. The units in the middle of the Forest saw nothing but trees and underbrush. All the world was forest to them. Those who found themselves on the edge looked out on stretches of the great battlefield under puffs of shell smoke, and to the going and coming of aeroplanes in another world, and possibly were forced to seek shelter in the Forest by bursts of machine-gun fire to which they were exposed from other divisional sectors.
So it was not surprising that the men of the 77th, immersed in the Forest depths, should think that they were fighting the whole battle. They knew nothing of the "scalloping" tactics. Their horizon was confined to a few square yards. To them the Argonne had no appeal of a holiday woods. Sylvan glades, which the poet might admire, meant stumbling down one side and crawling up the other, withears keen for the whipping sound which might signify that they were in an ambush. They might not stop in for a nap at the rest-camps. They were not sleeping in those beautiful wainscoted quarters, but on the dank ground in the deep shadow of the trees which kept the sunlight from slaking moisture after the rains. The rolling kitchens were held up in the rear where the trucks cut deep in the saturated woodland earth, and hurdled over tree-trunks between sloughs, while the Forest made the darkness all the more trying as the weary engineers endeavored to hold up their end.
The infantry continued its valiant and persistent see-sawing. On the 29th they made a big swing on the right, and on the left took adépôt de machines, or roundhouse, and the treacherous ravine south of Binarville in which it was situated, by hard and audacious fighting. On the 30th the whole line again made progress, against machine-gunners who had cunningly prepared paths to give them visibility for a greater distance, and to draw the attackers into the line of their fire. They charged down the slopes of the Charlevaux ravine and its irregular branches, across the streams and swamps at their bottoms, and up the slopes on the other side—all this through woods and thickets, of course. The next day an even deeper advance was made over very irregular ground, while the right in triumphantardor pressed forward, ahead of the left and center, across the Fontaine-aux-Charmes ravine and its branches and their streams until it was past the heights of the Chêne Tondu. As the Chêne Tondu was not yet wholly in the possession of the division on the right, the gallant victors deserved something better in their weariness than to be forced to retire by overwhelming fire in flank and rear from the commanding heights. The night of October 1st the "Liberty" men, after six days in which they had steadily advanced for a depth of six miles, held the line from the Chêne Tondu across the Forest to a point north of Binarville, its supporting flanks on either edge of the Forest in a deadlock.
There was forest and still more forest ahead of the 77th. After it had conquered the Argonne, it might have a chance to take the Bourgogne Wood beyond on the way to the Lille-Metz railway. After this experience the New Yorkers ought not to be afraid to go into Central Park after dark when they returned home.
They may have thought that the 28th on their right was not keeping up to program, and the 28th may have thought that they were not; but neither had the advantage that I had of seeing the other in action during those terrible days. Astride the Aire river, having the trough as its very own, the 28th put a heart of iron into its first impact, andtempered it to steel in its succeeding attacks. The "scalloping" process which was its mission looked just as simple on a flat map as the swing toward the Meuse of the 33rd; but then, everything looked simple on the map, and everything for all the divisions might have been as simple as it looked if it had not been for the enemy. He was always interfering with our staff plans. If the Aire's course had been straight, and the valley walls had come down symmetrically to the river bottom, the 28th would have had straight open fighting, which is a satisfaction to brave men whatever the cost. A direct frontal attack was as out of the question for the Pennsylvanians as it was mandatory for the 77th. They must exhibit suppleness and cunning, or bull-dog grit was of no service.
In full realization that the true defense of the Forest was on its flanks, the enemy developed strong resistance in front of the 28th on the first day. The Perrières Hill, a bastion in the first line of defense, honeycombed with machine-gun emplacements, held up the attack on the left as it swept its fire over the trench system on either side, covering the steep approaches for its capture which were studded with shell-craters and festooned with tangles of wire. The enemy also set store by the ruins of the town of Varennes in the valley, which were to become so familiar to all the soldiers who ever passed alongthe Aire road. At Varennes the road crosses the river in sight of the surrounding congeries of hills. Under cover of the ruins and the river banks the Germans had both seventy-sevens and machine-guns, which, well-placed as they were, failed of their purpose. It was now evident that the enemy would strive to hold every height on either side of the Aire with the object of grinding our attacks between the molars of two powerful jaws.
For the German map plan was as simple as ours. It invited our initiative into the open throat of the valley and into blind alleys between the heights blazing with fire. The 28th was to interfere with the German plan just as the Germans were to interfere with the American. Plans did not seem to count. Nothing counted except tactical resource and courage in the face of shells which came screaming and bullets whistling from crests in sight and crests out of sight. Woods fighting was only an incident of the problem for the 28th, which took La Forge on the edge of Montblainville, only to find that the machine-guns in the Bouzon Wood on the west wall had an open field for their fire from three quarters of the compass.
The disadvantage of the 28th's sector from the start was that there was no screen of foliage to cover a deployment before a charge. On the night of the 26th the battalion which had been held up bythe Perrières Hill was marched round, to carry out the plan of "scalloping," for an attack on the Chêne Tondu, which was an escarpment projecting out of the Forest into the valley of the Aire north of Montblainville, like a wood-covered promontory into a strait. It commanded the whole river valley and the Forest edge on its front. Its slopes were irregular, with every irregularity seeming to favor the defender, who at every point looked down-hill upon the attacker. Behind it was another escarpment, even stronger, the Taille l'Abbé. Between the two the enemy had ample wooded space for moving his reserves and artillery free from observation. Should the Chêne Tondu be lost, the enemy had only to withdraw with punishing rearguard fire to this second bastion. On the reverse slope of the Taille l'Abbé were hospitals, comfortable officers' quarters, and dugouts, while the artillery in position there could shoot over the Chêne Tondu with plunging fire upon its approaches. Along the heights of the Forest edge and other heights to the rear, other guns, as many as the Germans could spare for the sector, might find perfect camouflage and security.
There were also the heights of the east bank of the Aire to consider. With the river winding past their feet they interlocked across the valley. Thus advancing down the valley meant advancing against heights in front as well as on the flanks. Stretchingback to the whale-back itself beyond the heights of the east bank were other heights, even more commanding, whose reverse slopes offered the same kind of inviting cover for long-range artillery as the reverse slopes on the west bank. If a height on one bank were not taken at the same time as the corresponding height on the other, this meant murderous exposure for the men in the attack that succeeded. Therefore, thrifty and fruitful success required a uniformity of movement by the three divisions of the First Corps in conquering the heights of both banks of the Aire and of the Forest's edge.
For the 28th the taking of the Chêne Tondu was the keystone of the advance. Until it had this height, the 28th could not support the movement of the 77th in the Forest or of the 35th on the east bank of the Aire. The Germans had concentrated their immediate reserves on the Chêne Tondu, and their guns on its supporting heights.
If the German staff had planned the woods in front of the main slopes of Chêne Tondu, they could hardly have been in a better location for affording invisibility to machine-gun nests against a visible foe. To have taken the Chêne Tondu by one fell rush, as our staff desired, might have been possible through sheer weight of man-power by the mustering of all the division's infantry against one sector of its front, supported by the artillery of twoor three divisions with unlimited ammunition. The artillery of the 28th was not up. It was having the same trouble about roads as the artillery of other divisions. When the officers of the 28th scouted the avenues of approach in order to maneuver their infantry units economically, they found none which would not require that we charge across open and rising ground against an enemy whose strength our men were to learn by "feeling it" in an attack without adequate shields into concentrations of shell- and machine-gun fire which became the more powerful the more ground they gained.
Availing themselves of every possible opening where the enemy's fire was relatively weak, they forced their way into the village of Apremont in the valley. As soon as this success was known to him, the enemy made up for any neglect in prevision by bringing guns and machine-guns into position to command the village. Wherever the Pennsylvanians made a thrust, if a savage reception were not primed awaiting them, one was soon arranged. Their maneuvers were further hampered by the bends of an unfordable river, which a direct attack for any great depth would have to cross and recross under the interlocking fire. Troops on the narrow river bottom were visible as flies on a wall. Every hour German resistance was strengthening in the Aire sector as in other vital sectors along the front.
Their guns up, the division attacked the Chêne Tondu a second time in the vigor of renewed confidence and in the light of the knowledge they had gained of the enemy's dispositions. They won a footing; and then attacked again. Their effort now became incessant in trying to make more bites at close quarters, as they struggled for complete mastery. The Germans infiltrated back between our units, and we infiltrated forward between theirs. We might think that we had possession of ground over a certain portion of front, only to find that our efforts to "mop up" were thwarted. With Chêne Tondu partly conquered in the search for advantage in maneuver, we moved on the Taille l'Abbé in flank; and there we found the Germans, thanks to their fresh reserves, in irresistible force. They were firing prodigal quantities of gas-shells wherever our men took cover in any stretch of woods they had conquered.
The 35th on the east bank of the Aire was meeting with deadly opposition which held it back, as we shall see when its story is told. Maintainingliaisonon the heights of the east bank with the 28th astride the river was fraught with the same elements of confusion as with the 77th in the monstrous irregularity of the escarpments on the Forest's edge. To which division belonged the khaki figures breaking out of a ravine in an effort to rush a machine-gunnest which held them at its mercy? One thing was certain: they must either advance or retreat. Under the whip of impulse as well as orders they tried to advance. Messages exchanged between neighboring division headquarters, under the pressure of the Corps command to get ahead, were dependent upon reports long in coming out of the recesses of the woods. Each division staff in its faith in the courage of its men, who were fighting on their nerves after sleepless nights, insisted that it was doing its part and would be up—and that, by God! it was up.
The possession of the Aire heights was all important to the Army command, still undaunted in its ambition for the immediate conquest of the whale-back in those fateful days at the end of September. On the 29th two Leavenworth men from Grand Headquarters itself—while two regular colonels were sent to regiments—were put in command of the brigades of the 28th. One of the colonels was killed before he took over his command, and the other later in leading a charge. On the 30th the division was to make another general attack, supported by all available artillery and tanks; but a few minutes before the infantry were to charge, the Germans developed a counter-attack in force. Their troops were middle-aged Landwehr men, who made up in spirit what they lacked in youth. They hadbeen told that theirs was the opportunity to help the Fatherland in a critical moment against these untrained Americans. The courage with which they persisted in their charge was worthy of a better cause. It recalled the freshness and abandon of German volunteers in the first battle of Ypres. Our infantry, already in line to advance over the same ground as the counter-attack, received it with a merciless fire which its ranks kept breasting in fruitless sacrifice. Our tanks, waiting to move forward with our infantry at the moment set for our own attack, carried out their program and literally rolled over many of the survivors of the charge in which our youth had learned some respect for age. Our attack was countermanded, and the next day was October 1st, which was to mark another period of the battle, as I have said.