American soldiers starting out to storm Cantigny, on the Picardy front. They were aided by French tanks. The attack, which took place on May 21, 1918, was entirely successful.
American soldiers starting out to storm Cantigny, on the Picardy front. They were aided by French tanks. The attack, which took place on May 21, 1918, was entirely successful.
The Germans directed a strong retaliatory assault against this sector a few days later. Its repulse revealed that the Americans were in sufficient force to hold a considerable portion of the front line. Three companies of trained shock troops were sent to take the American trenches under a heavy German barrage.American artillery responded with a like curtain of fire as soon as the German barrage was raised, and American machine guns sent streams of bullets into the advancing enemy. The fighting was brisk for about an hour; but the accurate machine-gun and rifle fire from the American front lines, coupled with the perfect American barrage, which prevented reenforcements from coming up, forced the Germans to withdraw after sustaining heavy casualties and without having set foot in the American trenches.
After the attack a patrol was found to be missing. A platoon set out into no-man's-land to find them in a rain of machine-gun bullets. The German fire was too heavy, and they returned without finding any trace of the missing men. It was assumed that the latter had been too venturesome and were captured.
BEFORE AMIENS
The Allies' resistance to Germany's spring offensive of 1918, which aimed to reach the Channel ports and Paris, at first revealed no indication that American forces were taking part in the defense. The sweep of her first advance, begun on March 21, 1918, extended from the vicinity of Arras, on the north, to La Fère, on the south. The latter town was near a great bend then in the western line around the wood of St. Gobain, a short distance northwest of the Chemin-des-Dames, where, as shown in the previous chapter, Americans were stationed. Hence the German attack swept within fighting distance of American arms.
The United States was in sufficient strength along the western front to make it certain that General Pershing would not let Great Britain and France bear the sole burden of meeting the German advance. But for some days the share of the American forces in the fighting was veiled in mystery. Berlin finally shed a little daylight on the subject. In its official communiqués ofMarch 24 and 25, 1918, it alluded to American reserves having been thrown back on Chauny, which is eight miles west of La Fère. These bulletins contained the following passages:
"The British Third and Fourth Armies and portions of Franco-American reserves who had been brought up were beaten, and on the line of Bapaume-Bouchavesnes and behind the Somme, between Péronne and Ham, as well as at Chauny, were repulsed with the heaviest of losses.
"The corps of Generals von Webern and von Conte and the troops of General von Geyl, after a fierce battle, crossed the Crozat Canal.
"French, English, and American regiments which had been brought up from the southwest for a counterattack were thrown back on Chauny in a southwesterly direction."
The next day General Pershing threw further light on the mystery in a message to the War Department:
"Reference to the German communiques of the 24th and 25th regarding American troops: Two regiments of railway engineers are with the British armies involved in this battle. Three companies of engineers were working in the areas mentioned in the communique in the vicinity of the Crozat Canal."
Thereby hung a tale similar to that which recorded the part American engineers took at Cambrai, as told in the previous volume. By true Teutonic indirection, the German "Vorwärts," in commenting on the battle in the area named, indicated that the American share in it was not negligible:
"Attacks of combined Allied forces against the pivot of the German attacking front near La Fère were particularly heavy. These counterattacks did not find us unprepared. It testifies to the superior foresight of the German command that these attacks, in which American troops certainly participated only symbolically, were not only beaten off, but were thrown back on the Oise Canal by an energetic blow."
These allusions were foretokens that something unusual was taking place. The staid official language of General Pershing, in a communication to the War Department, thus described what had happened:
"Certain units of United States Engineers, serving with a British army battalion, March 21 and April 3, 1918, while under shell fire, carried out destruction of material dumps at Chaulnes, fell back with British forces to Moreuil, where the commands laid out trench work, then proceeded to Demuin, and were assigned a sector of the defensive line, which was constructed and manned by them, thence moved to a position on the line near Warfusee-Abancourt and extending to north side of Bois de Toillauw. The commands started for this position on March 27, 1918, and occupied it until April 3, 1918, during this time the commanding officer of a unit of United States Engineers being in command of the subsector occupied by his troops. This command was in more or less continuous action during its stay in this position. On April 3, 1918, the command was ordered to fall back to Abbeville."
General Rawlinson, commanding the British forces engaged in this battle, acknowledged the services performed by American engineers in a letter to the colonel commanding a United States engineer regiment.
"I fully realize," he wrote, "that it has been largely due to your assistance that the enemy is checked.... I consider your work in the line to be greatly enhanced by the fact that for six weeks previous to taking your place in the front line your men had been working at such a high pressure erecting a heavy bridge over the Somme. My best congratulations and warm thanks to you all."
It appeared that a gap had to be stopped in the bending line through which the Germans otherwise would have streamed. Amiens lay before their advancing hosts, and the way was open. The critical moment came on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 26, 1918. It was imperative that more troops should be thrown into the British line to arrest the German onrush. Reenforcements were on the way, but could not arrive in time.
A dashing British officer, Brigadier General Carey, hastily improvised a scratch force of every available element within reach. American engineers were among them, and they were eagerly drawn into the fray. By telephone, messenger, and flag signals,General Carey assembled a little army from behind the lines which included labor battalions, cooks, and orderlies, sturdy middle-aged men, of various occupations, electricians, signalers, members of an infantry training school, machine gunners hurriedly armed with rifles, engineers, and fifty cavalrymen for scouting. He also improvised a staff as he proceeded, "officers learning the ground," as one onlooker described it, "by having to defend it and every man from enlisted man to brigadier jumping at each job as it came along."
Early in the German advance, British reports had mentioned "Americans fighting shoulder to shoulder with the French and British." No American force was then identified as in the fight, and not until several days after did Pershing begin to send reenforcements to the Allies. The Americans referred to so mysteriously were part of that strangely mixed force that Carey drummed up from the void. These engineers at Carey's call picked up rifles and merged themselves in his motley corps without orders from anybody. They had been called from their work, which was constructing and operating field railways and building bridges.
The beginning of their exploits was due to three companies of an American engineer regiment being caught in the early bombardment. Ordered to fall back, one of the companies, which had been consolidated with the British Royal Engineers, was delegated to the task of guaranteeing the destruction of the engineers' dump referred to by General Pershing, which it had been decided to abandon. This detachment destroyed all the material, made a rapid retreat, caught up with the larger group, and immediately resumed work, laying out trenches. These operations lasted from March 22 to 27, 1918. As the German attack became more intense, the engineers joined up with the mixed force General Carey had assembled.
Then followed a week's brilliant defense of the road to Amiens. Led by General Carey, this assorted force, numbering 1,500 men, plunged into the swirling battle line, where they were strung over a front of 1,200 yards, against which hordes of Germans were thrown.
"It seems almost inconceivable," wrote a correspondent, "that these defenders, brave unto death though they were, could have been able to hold that long sector, but they held. The enemy advanced in force and hurled themselves time and time again against the line in this region, but they found no weak spot. This composite force stood as gallantly and as well as their comrades to the right and to the left. They clung on for many hours until the regulars came up."
What happened at Cambrai had been repeated before Amiens. American engineers, facing an emergency, had thrown their tools aside and taken up arms. They were not many; but, nevertheless, history will never record the battle of Picardy without including the story of how Carey's men acquitted themselves, nor omit the fact that Americans were in the fray.
Afterward American troops in strong force took up positions on the active fighting front in Picardy with the French and British. General Pershing's first reenforcements occupied a sector east of Amiens on a rolling terrain. The artillery was first on the line, entering on a dark night reddened by the continuous flashes of friendly and hostile guns. Under a fire at times heavy, the American gunners took up the positions of the French batteries and set about digging in. When the infantry moved in, the firing was just as intense. In some places the troops, after passing through villages, were raked with shrapnel. In several instances they found the trenches shallow; in other cases there were no trenches at all. The positions were soon improved and the shell holes connected. The American lines generally ran about 200 to 400 yards apart with the high ground about evenly divided about them.
The American troops were there to stay. The pack on each man's back as he entered the firing line was loaded with paraphernalia that pointed to permanency so far as such a condition obtains in warfare. Each carried a blanket, with a pair of shoes tied on either side of it. Among other articles carried were two pairs of socks, a suit of underwear, a towel, soap, toilet articles, two days' emergency rations of four packages of hard bread, and a can of corned beef, whatever trinkets he had, a deck of cards,a set of dice, and photographs and letters especially cherished by him. In addition he carried canteen, rifle, bayonet, 160 rounds of ammunition, a shovel, pick, and a wire cutter (or bolo).
A French communiqué, in reporting a violent bombardment of French-American positions on April 24, 1918, specifically located the American sector as "south of the Somme and on the Avre."
The opposing lines ran north and south, with the enemy between the Americans and the rising sun. Between the rear American echelons extended the main road between Amiens and Beauvais. Amiens, the German objective, lay thirty-five kilometers away on the American left. Beauvais was about the same distance away on the American right and two hours distant by train from Paris. The Americans were between the Germans and the sea.
On April 3, 1918, this American line was violently attacked by the Germans near Villers-Bretonneux—the first occasion that brought fully equipped American troops in force into the swing of the continuing Picardy battle. It was an afternoon bombardment, beginning at 5 o'clock, and lasted for two hours. The German guns were directed especially against the Americans, who were supported on the north and south by the French. The intensity of the enemy's fire slacked about 7 o'clock, whereupon the German commander sent forward three battalions of infantry. The Americans met them and a violent struggle ensued. There was hand-to-hand fighting all along the line, as a result of which the enemy was thrust back, his dead and wounded lying on the ground in all directions. Five prisoners remained in American hands. The American losses were severe, but so were the enemy's. The French were full of praise for the manner in which the Americans acquitted themselves under trying circumstances, especially in view of the fact that they were fighting at one of the most difficult points on the battle front.
An interlude of comparative quiet set in, if such a term can be used when there were daily artillery firing and patrolling. The Americans, settling in their positions, became stronger; they appeared to be better intrenched than the Germans, who were continually harassed, day and night. The enemy was wastefullylavish in the use of gas, some of it liquefied, in glass bottles which were hurled through the air apparently by means of a spring. On bursting they liberated heavy, white fumes that caused nausea, sneezing, and coughing, but did not otherwise harm the Americans. These missiles, thrown without any detonation, were a variant on the avalanche of "mustard" gas shells the Germans periodically showered. They appeared to be disconcerted by the unmoved bearing of the Americans before the gas assaults; instead of retreating from the clouds of fumes, the Americans countered by sending gas of twofold strength into the enemy's lines. In fact, the Americans always greeted every exhibition of German fire by returning it two to one. Their positions became daily more firmly established and those of the Germans more difficult to retain.
Higher up, northwest of these positions in Picardy, American troops had established positions in union with the British forces under Sir Douglas Haig. Thus "American fronts" by the middle of May, 1918, interposed along the entire western line from the North Sea to the Swiss border. Their distribution between French and British sectors placed fresh troops where they were needed and afforded scope for invaluable training in modern warfare to both officers and men that they could obtain in no other way. Those in Picardy were not long in proving that they were equal to their experienced Anglo-French comrades in arms in the task they had set themselves.
CANTIGNY
Foretokens of a movement against Cantigny came in the middle of May, 1918, when a searching American artillery fire exploded a huge German ammunition dump at that place and set a number of fires blazing behind the German lines in Montdidier. Near the latter town the Germans later drove a wedgeinto the American line in a retaliatory attack and stayed there for four hours. The American counterthrust hurled them back; the troops not only drove them across no-man's-land, but followed them into their own second line and made a haul of prisoners. The Germans suffered heavily in the fighting, which was of a hand-to-hand nature at times. The bravery of the Americans may be illustrated by the case of a private whose arm was blown off. Dazed, he kept on fighting, and did not know he had been injured until a comrade came to his aid.
This attack, like those made on the Lorraine front, was an attempt to push back new troops with the object of creating a feeling that they formed a weak link in the defending chain. The next day, however, the weak link stretched beyond its own line and essayed an assault on Cantigny. The action, May 28, 1918, took place while huge German forces elsewhere were in the swing of a drive southward through the Allied lines between Noyon and Rheims, on a forty-mile front, and had overrun the Chemin-des-Dames—throwing back the American forces there—and crossed the Aisne.
The Cantigny exploit did not bulk large in the great battle that raged from Ypres to Rheims; but it showed that, put on their mettle, the new troops were first-class fighting men and a match for the Germans. Amiens, in the neighborhood of which the enemy already had had a foretaste of American valor, was only twenty miles away to the northwest. To the American right the Germans were forging their way to the Marne and creating the celebrated salient between Soissons and Rheims. Away to the left the British and French had just checked the second phase of the German advance between Ypres and Arras. Cantigny brought a little consolation to the Allies, though only a counterdiversion of small account, in the midst of the sweeping German onslaught.
Just west of the village the Germans held a salient, which the Americans determined to flatten out. An advance, on a front of a mile and a quarter, was thereupon organized, involving the employment of a considerable force, and undertaken under the eye of veteran French officers, who made safeguarding dispositionsof their own forces to reenforce the Americans if necessary.
The customary artillery fire, augmented by French gunners, signalized the attack, which began early in the morning. Aided by French tanks, the Americans advanced through a mist and made the required distance of 600 yards in ten minutes under machine-gun fire. The tanks found their path easy, the American guns having already prepared the way. In fact, their fire smothered the Germans, whose resistance was so slight that the Americans proceeded to penetrate their positions to a depth of nearly a mile.
A strong unit of flame throwers and engineers aided the Americans. Moving barrages preceded the infantry advance, which followed with clockwork precision. There was some hand-to-hand fighting in the streets, but the hard-hitting Americans, wielding grenade and bayonet, managed to clear the enemy out of the village in three quarters of an hour. A number of Germans had taken refuge in a large tunnel and a number of caves, which formed part of the village fortifications, and the Americans had to hurl grenades like baseballs into these shelters in order to oust them. The Germans entombed in dugouts near by readily trooped out and surrendered when they saw the futility of resistance. In short, the garrison at Cantigny was soon accounted for; the men were either all captured or killed at a slight cost to the Americans. It was found that the Germans had honeycombed the village with outposts and machine-gun emplacements.
The Americans had obtained high ground commanding a section of plateaulike country. In straightening the salient they acquired territory the length of their two-kilometer advance, as well as Cantigny, and brought their line well east of the village.
The Germans attempted several counterattacks, persisting in them for three days. They were met by hurricanes of fire. Waves of German infantrymen were stopped dead or thrown back, leaving many of their number killed or wounded on the ground. There were night bombardments, air bombing, and even tank attacks in addition to fruitless advances of troops. Footsoldiers and tanks alike recoiled before the stone-wall resistance offered by the Americans, who did not budge an inch from the position they occupied on taking Cantigny. On the contrary, in face of continuous attempts to expel them, they consolidated their position, and finally came a quiet day, telling that the Germans had abandoned their efforts to retake the village. The attack and counterattacks yielded 242 prisoners to the Americans.
Berlin, recording the engagement on May 29, 1918, merely said:
"West of Montdidier the enemy during a local advance penetrated into Cantigny yesterday."
General Pershing found occasion to comment thus on this announcement in his report to the War Department:
"Attention is drawn to the fact that the German official communiqué of May 29, afternoon, in reporting the capture of Cantigny avoids mention of the fact that the operation was conducted by American troops. Recent marked endeavors of the Germans to discount the fighting qualities of our forces indicate that the enemy feared the moral effect of such admission in Germany."
AROUND CHÂTEAU-THIERRY
Meantime, some distance to the left of this American sector at Cantigny, the German thrust between Noyon and Rheims had cut across the Aisne, took a westward turn and enveloped Soissons, proceeded south to the Marne between Château-Thierry and Dormans on a six-mile front, and swung a couple of miles along the Marne beyond Dormans. Their advance having progressed thus far, the Germans on the Marne and on the west of the salient they had formed in the Allied line found themselves facing another American army.
The narrative of American operations in France thus turns from recording local exploits such as that at Cantigny and thetrench adventures that marked the inconsequential warfare along the American sectors east of St. Mihiel. It becomes merged in the story of major operations, with the Americans in the thick of a great battle, fighting shoulder to shoulder with the French on their left, and joined on their right by more French, aided by British and Italian troops. American forces in great numbers became a big factor in arresting the southward sweep of the Germans across the Marne, and in checking a plunge westward, both operations aiming at a triumphant march on Paris. Just as the Americans had aided in stopping the Germans from reaching Amiens, a pivotal point in the British lines, so did they save Paris. At the tail end of the third phase of his descent on the French capital via the Marne, the German was slowly beginning to realize that the despised Americans had become a leading factor in the war.
There was an imperative call for American aid to reenforce the French along the Marne and on the western side of the salient. They were rushed from distant training areas, or from the quiet sectors in Lorraine and Alsace or from the American positions round Cantigny and Montdidier and about Amiens on the British front, and once on the scene they immediately plunged into action to check the German drive. How one American unit hastened to fill the breach and stem the Teutonic tide was described by Junius B. Wood as typical of the expedition with which other detachments moved into the battle zone:
"One evening at 7 o'clock orders came over the long-distance telephone from headquarters to move. At 10 o'clock the same night camions were rumbling up, and after all the men had found places, started toward the fateful Marne. Before daylight they had crossed a goodly part of France and reached the reserve areas. The camions started back, while soldiers and officers stretched out along the roadside to snatch a few hours of sleep. The next night they marched into the support positions. A few more hours of sleep, and they went directly into the battle. In less than twelve hours telephone wires were strung and communication established in their territory. Every part of the organization from commanding officers to privates were working perfectly.Supplies were coming up over the roads in the rear. Ambulances were carrying back the wounded, while the trucks which had carried up ammunition with which to sow the seeds of death returned to aid refugees and thus helping to save the living.
"Along the Paris road the dust hung like a fog over the companies marching forward to take their turn at fighting and other companies returning for a few hours of sleep. Out of the brown clouds dashed staff motor cars and ambulances disregarding all speed laws. Trains of trucks passed the horse-drawn batteries moving into position. Flashes and ear-splitting crashes came from batteries put in position just far enough off the roads to avoid the traffic. Men were cooking beside the guns, and others, oblivious to the suffocating dust, were sleeping in the midst of the noise and turmoil. All moved according to a well-ordered system.
"While the guns were barking under the shade trees at the roadside stolid ox teams with carts loaded with household possessions were moving to the rear. It seemed as if the guns with their muzzles pointing the other way were holding back the invaders until those fleeing fugitives should again reach safety. Other batteries were hastily unlimbered in fields and orchards where plows and harrows had been abandoned only a few hours previously by the peaceful peasants."
The Americans entered the line in the midst of a battle which raged over a hilly country and which shifted back and forth like a maelstrom. Crops were growing and there were no prepared trenches. The first unit on the scene was a machine-gun battalion, which rode on trucks throughout the night of Friday, May 30, 1918, and arrived the next morning, going into position to guard the bridges across the Marne at Château-Thierry. Another unit arrived on Sunday morning, June 2, 1918, and before 4 o'clock the same afternoon had been in three fights, in one of which it drove the Germans back two kilometers on a front of four kilometers.
The beginning of June, 1918, in fact, which marked the entrance of the Americans into the battle line of the Soissons-Marne-Rheimssalient, found them in the thick of the conflict almost before they had breathing time to dig in.
The Germans at once locked horns with them at Neuilly, Château-Thierry, and Jaulgonne. When the Americans appeared near the first-named place, the Germans were trying to enter Neuilly Wood. They had succeeded in entering the village of Neuilly-la-Poterie near by and found the adjacent woods, occupied by the French and Americans, a stumblingblock to their advance. The American machine gunners mowed down the advancing enemy battalions and later supported the French infantry in a counterattack which forced the enemy to retire beyond the northern edge of the wood. On June 31, 1918, the Germans made another attempt to drive the Americans out. They concentrated large forces and advanced in massed formation. Again they were met by a rain of machine-gun fire, which smothered a similar hail of bullets the Germans had shed on the Americans from hastily erected machine-gun positions on the skirts of the wood. The Americans advanced before the Germans reached their line, engaged them at close quarters with the bayonet, broke their formations and sent them fleeing in confusion to the ruined village beyond the wood whence they had come.
While these attacks were under way American and French troops on the Marne near Jaulgonne, east of Château-Thierry, were engaged in repelling a battalion of Germans who had forced a passage of the river at that point. In a sharp combat, marked by the fierceness of their machine-gun fire, the French and Americans, fighting side by side, almost wiped out the German forces which reached the southern bank of the Marne. Most of the survivors were rounded up in small groups and captured. They numbered a hundred. A second German attack was launched later with shock troops, who also gained a footing on the southern bank, but again their stay was not long. The footbridge on which they crossed was swept by American machine-gun fire, and rushes of American infantry forced the enemy back.
The most notable of these preliminary contacts the Germans had with the Americans on the southern arc of the salient wasat Château-Thierry. The battalion of American machine gunners already mentioned, which had been posted on May 31, 1918, to guard the river bridges at that town, found the Germans already in the northern outskirts. The town lies on both sides of the Marne, which is there spanned by a big bridge. A little to the northward a canal runs parallel to the river and is crossed by a smaller bridge. The Germans had made their way into the northern part of the town through a gap they had driven in the Allied lines to the left, and began to stream through the streets toward the bridge, intending to establish themselves firmly on the southern bank and capture the town.
They reckoned without the American machine gunners, who had been suddenly thrown into Château-Thierry with French colonial troops. The Americans immediately took over the defense of the river bank, especially the approaches to the bridge. They began operations by poking the muzzles of their weapons through broken walls, bushes, and holes knocked in the sides of the houses. The guns were skillfully hidden and the Germans were unable to locate them. The latter wavered under the American fire, their advance was brought to a standstill, and a counterattack by the French colonials drove them from the town. As usual the Germans attempted a counterassault. The next night, June 1, 1918, taking advantage of the darkness, they stole toward the large bridge, in which direction they penetrated through the western suburbs to the banks of the Marne. In order to mask their movements, they made use of smoke bombs, which made the aim of the machine guns very difficult. At the same time the town underwent an extremely violent bombardment. A surprise, however, was in store for them. They were already crossing the bridge, evidently believing themselves masters of both banks, when a thunderous explosion blew the center of the bridge and a number of Germans with it into the river. Those who reached the southern bank were immediately captured. Holding the south end of the bridge, the Americans covered the withdrawal of troops across the bridge before its destruction, and although under severe fire themselves, kept all the approaches to the bank under a rain of bullets, which nullified all thesubsequent efforts of the enemy to cross the river. Every attempt of the Germans to elude the vigilance of the Americans resulted in disaster to them. The upshot was that the Germans abandoned the occupation of the northern part of Château-Thierry, which American machine guns made untenable, and it became a part of no-man's-land. The Americans altogether made a brilliant defense of the town. A French staff officer described it as one of the finest feats of the war. There was little left of the town itself. It was shot to pieces and became a pile of bricks and stones.
A DRIVE BY THE MARINES
American operations in the salient now took a more active turn to the northwest of Château-Thierry in the vicinity of Neuilly, where the Germans had already clashed with their new antagonists. There the Americans were linked with the French on a line that rested on Neuilly-la-Poterie, and ran through Champillon, Lucy-le-Bocage, and to the south of Triangle, and then meandered in an irregular course to Château-Thierry. From this line came a forward movement on June 6, 1918, directed east of Neuilly toward Torcy, Belleau, and Bouresches. The next day the line stood south of the village of Torcy, south of the village of Belleau, with the wood of Belleau partly in American possession, and through Bouresches, then south to the highway east of Thiolet, and thence to Château-Thierry. This advance represented an extension of the American line over a front of about six miles to a depth of nearly two and a half miles.
The brunt of the fighting was borne by United States Marines. It was a sustained action, extending for thirty-six hours. It held the center of the war stage; on no other part of the fighting fronts were there any measurable activities that produced like successes against German arms. The movement, which aimed to drive the German lines farther back from their Paris objective also hadits significance in that its second stage was directed by American commanders and undertaken solely by American troops. Most of the fighting by Americans on the western front had been carried out under French commanders. The American units detailed to the Somme, for example, reported to the French command, who assigned them with French soldiers where they were most needed. The commander of the unit to which the marines belonged wanted full control of his own sector in the Château-Thierry region. The request was granted, and the result showed that an American unit, acting on its own initiative, could acquit itself equal to the best-trained German unit.
The first assault on the enemy lines was made at dawn, when the American marines swept forward, with the French attacking on their left, and gained over a mile on a four-mile front. By 8 o'clock they had gained all their first objectives and held all the important high ground northwest of Château-Thierry. They captured 100 prisoners, among them thirty-five mounted Uhlans, and ten machine guns.
The enemy had augmented his line recently, the Americans having pressed him so hard that he was forced to throw three new divisions of his best troops into the breach. Against them the Americans advanced in a solid phalanx, singing and whistling "Yankee Doodle," and cheering. No barrage preceded them, although there had been some advance artillery preparations. On certain parts of the line the resistance was weak; but in other instances our marines ran into German machine-gun nests which, in some cases, succeeded in inflicting considerable casualties. But they did not stop the Americans. Marines with hand grenades and rifles charged the machine guns, wiping out the nests, and in one instance capturing a gun and its crew.
Where the American marines stopped the German advance on the Marne.
Where the American marines stopped the German advance on the Marne.
From the new line gained by the first attack, a second American advance was made at five in the evening, and by night it reached Torcy and Bouresches. The next morning, June 7, 1918, the Americans were holding Torcy in the face of repeated counterattacks and pushing back the Germans through the streets of Bouresches. Torcy was not part of the American objective,but the eager marines swept into the village by their own momentum.
The hardest fighting took place in the wood of Belleau, to the east of Torcy and between that village and Bouresches.
The wood of Belleau into which the marines penetrated with such ardor proved a hornets' nest. It was ambushed with machine guns, which hampered the American advance and caused many casualties. There were about twenty of them in the plateau formed by the wood. The Americans vainly tried to demolish them by rifles, mortars, and hand grenades. Finally, despite the streams of bullets, they surrounded the plateau, cut off the Germans in it, and went ahead, capturing a hill beyond the wood and inflicting heavy losses on the Germans as they withdrew.
The tireless and undaunted marines then moved on Bouresches. It was a night attack, marked by volleys of machine-gun fire which they poured into the enemy stationed in the village. Bayonets were freely used whenever the Germans attempted to make a stand in the streets. The path of the Americans was not easy. They drove the Germans out in the face of heavy artillery fire, including gas shells, but several times they were balked by machine guns operated by Germans from house roofs. At last a lieutenant, with what was left of a platoon, penetrated into the town under heavy German fire and cleared it of infantry. He held it for thirty minutes, until two companies of Americans came to his aid. They spent an hour routing out the German machine gunners with rifles and hand grenades, when the ammunition began to run low. A runner was dispatched for supplies and another lieutenant hastened to the rescue with a truck load of ammunition. On the road to Bouresches he was the target of a heavy fire from Germans who had hidden behind the advancing Americans; but he succeeded in getting the truck into the town and distributing the sorely needed ammunition.
The American position created by the capture of Bouresches ran from that village to Le Thiolet and guarded the highway from Château-Thierry to Paris. On June 8, 1918, the Germans vainly attacked this position. They also tried to retake Bourescheswithout success. They could not advance beyond the railroad tracks to the north of the town, where they had intrenched themselves after being driven out by the marines.
The Germans started a night bombardment on the position, to which the Americans did not respond until the enemy's movements revealed that an attack on Le Thiolet was intended. A heavy American barrage was thereupon laid down, which cut the communications of the attacking force and hampered its reenforcements. The Americans were in shallow trenches, hastily prepared, but well equipped with machine guns, which poured a concentrated fire on the enemy when he advanced within 600 yards. Under that fire he continued for 200 yards and then stopped. Undismayed by this repulse, the enemy sent another body of troops to attack the American positions south of the highway, where, on the edge of a wood, the Americans had posted many machine guns. The gunners allowed the Germans to advance a certain distance and then rained their fire upon them. More than a hundred German dead covered one small field swept by the American bullets. The enemy was halted and driven back by a rush of Americans from their trenches in the face of a hail of bullets showered upon them from behind the German lines. This rear fire marked both the attack and repulse, but did not deter the Americans.
It now came the turn of the marines occupying Bouresches to beat off a German attack aiming at its recapture. The trio of counterassaults appeared to have been designed so that the third should be the grand finale, or a culminating surprise for the Americans. The latter were alert, having been forewarned, and were reenforced by a number of machine guns. These they placed on the top of the embankment along which the railroad track ran. The slaughter of the Germans was ruthless when they ventured to cross the track. None returned who got past the embankment; they were either killed or captured. The attack was repeated, but each attempt to retake Bouresches failed.
The Americans with their machine guns paid the Germans back in their own coin. One of the chief obstacles to the Americans' progress was the German fire from such guns. Bourescheswhen taken was found dotted with positions for them in strong locations and they had to be demolished by mortars. The Germans appeared to rely more on their machine guns to arrest the American advance than on any other weapon of offense. When not fixed in locations they were portable, being mounted on carriages and pushed along by their operators. The Germans also used a light field mortar, mounted on a two-wheel truck, in the same way.
The three days' fighting produced the usual crop of striking incidents. One marine who was taking back a prisoner ran into two German officers and ten men. He fought them single-handed with his rifle and bayonet, killed both the officers and wounded seven of the men. Another sergeant was about to take a prisoner when the German threw himself on the ground and discharged his revolver at the American after calling "comrade," the sergeant shot him, as he did four others who also had surrendered, but refused to put up their hands. In Torcy twenty-five Americans engaged and drove out 200 Germans, and then withdrew to the main line on the outskirts of the town. A corporal in a company of marines, all of whose officers, including the sergeants, had been killed or wounded, took the command and led his men to their objective.
The élan of the Americans in the whole adventure was expressed by a private who was among the first to rush into Torcy:
"I never saw such wonderful spirit. Not one of our fellows hesitated in the face of the rain of the machine-gun fire, which it seemed impossible to get through. Every German seemed to have a machine gun. They fought like wild cats, but the Americans were too much for them."
BELLEAU WOOD
There was a dangerous bulge in the new American line formed by Belleau Wood. In their advance the Americans had been unable to take this forested little stronghold perched on a hill among rocks, and had swept past it, after capturing a near-by elevation, and rushed on to Bouresches. The wood concealed ambushes of German infantry and machine guns, which were a thorn in the side of the Americans on the outskirts. They had made several raids in the wood, expelling groups of Germans here and there; but the next day the enemy would reappear and pour a harassing fire on the American lines. Notwithstanding searching shelling from American guns, the Germans seemed to retain a firm hold.
A German attack on June 8, 1918, to oust the Americans from the positions they held on the borders of the wood precipitated an energetic counterassault to clear the enemy completely out. The Americans had already matured plans for riddling the entire woody plateau with a deluge of shells. This artillery scheme was carried out on mathematical lines, the area of the wood being marked off into checkerboard squares, a square to each battery. Every part of the wood therefore had established targets for the American gunners to play upon. The artillery preparation lasted all of Sunday and Monday, June 9 and 10, 1918. It was the most expansive exhibition of ordnance in action that the Americans had undertaken. The wood was raked with more than 5,000 high explosive and gas shells. At 3 o'clock on Monday morning the marines, who had been in conflict with the Germans in their attack of Saturday, proceeded to advance into the wood and penetrated it for two-thirds of a mile on a 66-yard front.
The operations were tersely reported by General Pershing to the War Department as follows:
"June 11.—Northwest of Château-Thierry we were again successful in advancing our positions in the Belleau Wood. Wecaptured 250 prisoners, of whom three were officers, and considerable material, including a number of machine guns and trench mortars."
"June 13—Yesterday afternoon our troops northwest of Château-Thierry captured the last of the German positions in the Belleau Wood, taking fifty prisoners and a number of machine guns and trench mortars, in addition to those taken on the preceding day."
The Germans now became a menace on the borders of the wood, where they impinged on a number of awkward pockets or little salients. The Americans in the wood enjoyed no sinecure, but were engaged in continuous skirmishes against groups of the enemy. One small pocket the Germans found too untenable under American fire on the northern side of the wood and hastily vacated it on June 19, 1918, enabling the Americans to advance five-eighths of a mile without resistance. A short and sharp artillery fire on the position presaged an infantry attack, which the Germans elected not to face. They carried their material with them in their retreat, and the Americans, therefore, did not take any machine guns nor prisoners. On the morning of June 21, 1918, the Americans straightened their line further on the northern and eastern side by a series of small but effective attacks. They rushed the positions held by the enemy without the customary artillery opening. The Germans for the most part fired a few shots and retired. Members of one post alone held their ground, only to be annihilated. To the east a thin line of American skirmishers obtained the objective in view there by merely firing as they advanced.
Still the borders of the wood were not clear of the Germans. On June 23, 1918, the Americans directed their attention to the northwestern corner, where the Germans held positions that appeared impregnable. The Americans, in a night attack, started a heavy barrage, after which they went forward and drove out the Germans. The operation lasted only half an hour.
Another engagement that took place in the same quarter on the same day was more extensive in scope though local in object. It resulted in the Americans advancing their lines a distance of200 to 400 yards on a front of one kilometer, routing the Germans out of several hidden gun nests, and the capture of five machine guns. The fighting was marked by certain features, described by Edwin L. James:
"This fight, which lasted four hours, was not accompanied by artillery or gas fire, and was mostly close hand fighting, the kind which Americans most prefer. It was a fight such as seldom occurs in this war, where usually trench positions are so well defined that barrages can be laid safely by both sides down to a matter of inches.
"Germans and Americans got so mixed up in the north end of the Bois de Belleau that neither side risked using artillery for fear of killing its own men.
"The Americans began to advance at 6 o'clock in broad daylight. In the extreme north wood the Germans had been able to establish some machine guns, which were firing against us. Our men advanced against these positions and discovered that to the north of the wood the Germans had established a strong line position."
As to the ubiquitous machine guns, the Americans found that the Germans had organized such posts with great ingenuity:
"At one point the nature of the terrain prevented machine guns on the ground from commanding the surrounding area. Here a dead German gunner was found seated in the crotch of a tree, his hand still resting on a machine gun slung from a pulley and carefully counterbalanced down so that it could be pointed in every direction. This German stayed at his post until an American shot him.
"Another machine gun was found on a cleverly concealed platform in a tree, while in another tree a one-pounder was mounted until we put it out of commission.
"Preceding the advance of our infantry, American artillery had put down a heavy bombardment of German positions in the woods, but large trees impaired the effectiveness of the shells."
The retention by the Germans of positions abutting on the wood had been reduced to a single point on the north. This remaining menace was subjected to a dashing attack by the Americanson the night of June 25, 1918. In their various forays they had cleared the enemy out of the wood several days ago; but the discovery was made that under cover of darkness the Germans had planted machine guns behind huge bowlders, in sunken roadways, in shell holes, and in trees in a narrow area on the edge of the wood. It was most difficult to reach them in these positions, and some fierce hand-to-hand fighting occurred in the clearing process.
The attack involved an artillery bombardment lasting thirteen hours. Only a small strip of underbrush, behind which the Germans had raised their defensive works, remained to be cleared; but the importance of the American advance was not to be measured by the extent of territory taken. Though it only amounted to some 500 yards, it gave them possession of virtually all of Belleau Wood, and enabled them to dominate the ridge beyond, held by the Germans, besides straightening their lines for more effective resistance to counterattacks as well as for offensive operations. Over twenty machine guns were captured, with a number of automatic rifles, small arms and ammunition, and 311 prisoners.
It was a surprise attack, in which the American artillery played a brilliant part, throwing the whole German line in confusion and making it such an inferno that prisoners said they were glad to get out of it alive. In advancing, the Americans went one way and the German officers tried to force their men forward the other way. One prisoner was shot in the leg by his own officer because he hesitated confusedly between the American guns and bayonets and the pistols in the hands of the German officers.
An American private, who was in the first line of the advance, gave this glimpse of the operation:
"We took up a position in the open wood; there were no trenches. The Germans opened a heavy fire and shells fell around us like rain. We charged over the rocky hill, our fellows laughing and yelling a war whoop. We then came upon a wheat field and crossed in the face of a withering shell and machine-gun fire, and drove back the Germans at the point of the bayonet."
Interposing between the attacks around Belleau Wood were skirmishes for the possession of Bouresches. This town, being only a mile or so to the south of the wood, constituted a menace to the Americans if retaken by the Germans, and consequently the latter made several determined efforts to regain it. Two hours after the Americans made their first attack on Belleau Wood on June 10, 1918, the Germans launched heavy forces against the Americans holding Bouresches. A dark and cloudy night aided their preparations for the rush, but the Americans, expecting an assault, had the northern side of the town lined with machine guns, and had artillery trained on the railroad embankment over which the Germans had to come. When, at 5 o'clock, the Germans came they met a terrific machine-gun fire, while a heavy barrage behind the attacking party, and gradually lowered on it, not only cut off reenforcements, but killed many in it.
Two fresh divisions were thrown against the American center. Trusting to the deep woods northeast of the village and the twisted spur of a hill to conceal them, the leading divisions advanced in mass formation. They, however, were observed from the Bois de Belleau and were brought under a destructive hail of shrapnel before they could deploy. The fire was so severe that the attack was disorganized and no progress could be made for some time.
When the Germans did succeed in penetrating the defenses, they were met with such enthusiasm in cold steel that their only choice was death or surrender.
Another violent attack on the town came on the morning of June 13, 1918. The Germans succeeded in entering the town after raking the American positions by a furious bombardment. The Americans promptly darted out of their shelters and engaged the invaders in a hand-to-hand conflict, in which the latter were all killed or captured.
A moonlight sortie across the Marne east of Château-Thierry provided a diversion for the American forces at that point while the marines were busy on the Belleau-Bouresches line. Once over the river, they established contact with hostile forces, killed a considerable number, and brought back prisoners, mainly fromLandwehr units. The following description of the raid was furnished by an Associated Press correspondent:
"Heavy clouds obscured the moon and a light drizzle had just begun to fall when the two parties of Americans embarked in small boats and rowed across the river from two points of the wooded bank. They crossed without detection. One party entered the woodside held by the Germans and penetrated cautiously under the dripping trees for a few hundred feet.
"A break in the clouds suddenly let the moonlight through, and the Americans saw Germans near by. The Americans immediately opened fire from a little rise in the ground, and the Germans threw themselves flat. Rifles cracked, and then the automatics got into action. Those of the enemy who remained alive were taken prisoners. Twelve enemy dead were counted before the patrol made its way back to the boats and rowed to its own side of the river.
"The other patrol met another enemy party, apparently sentries, going on guard. Several of the Germans were killed or wounded and one was taken prisoner."
A previous diversion at midnight was directed at a wood, also to the east of Château-Thierry. Aerial photographs had revealed a host of enemy troops and much material concealed there, and upon them the American guns poured an avalanche of projectiles, sending 1,200 shells of all calibers into one small area in ten minutes. To the west of the town, a fight occurred round a commanding hill whose northern, or unimportant side, was held by the Germans. The latter sent forces around both sides and over the top to expel the American and French troops, who held the crest and the other flanks of the hill, without gaining an advantage.
THEIR PRESENCE FELT
The exploits of American forces during the month of June, 1918, in the Château-Thierry region of the Soissons-Rheims salient had a significance of their own, which was not lost on their admiring Allies, nor on their German foes. A new combatant, stripped and eager for action, had plunged into tasks which would have taxed the hardened and more experienced troops of France and Great Britain. Though confined to a small area, the American achievements were sufficiently notable to prove that the Americans had speedily become the equals of any other warriors on the fighting fronts. In the numerous fights centering on Belleau Wood their captures of Germans reached 1,000. A number of them belonged to the crack Fifth German Guard Division, which includes the Queen Elizabeth Regiment. There had been 1,200 Germans in the wood. With the exception of the prisoners nearly all the rest were slain. The guard division named was regarded as one of the kaiser's best body of fighters; but the Americans were surprised to find their morale very low and that they were no match for American vigor and audacity.
At the beginning of June, 1918, American troops stepped into a seven-mile sector northwest of Château-Thierry and stopped the Germans, at the very tip of their salient, from getting any nearer to Paris. More than that, on a front of ten kilometers they hurled almost constant blows, which advanced their line from two to four kilometers, all the way inflicting heavy losses on the enemy, and taking some 1,500 prisoners. Of eleven distinct engagements the Americans won ten. They kept eleven picked German divisions occupied, which might otherwise have been used with telling effect elsewhere. There was no doubt at all that the quality of the American fighters had proved a source of considerable concern to the German High Command. An oft-repeated canard current in France was to the effect that the Germansdid not wish to punish the Americans by sending their best troops against them, preferring not to arouse the American spirit. Nevertheless, the kaiser had sent his most famous battalions to try conclusions with the Americans, and they had been beaten. Learning of the Americans' presence on the Marne, two crack German divisions, the Fifth Guard and the Twenty-eighth, which had been ordered elsewhere, were suddenly swung south to face the Americans. Their arrival caused some wonderment among the French and American officers. The Americans were a feared foe. A captured German officer said these two divisions were on their way to the rear for a four weeks' rest, to take part in another offensive, when suddenly they were ordered to the front northwest of Château-Thierry, "in order to prevent at all costs the Americans from being able to achieve success."
The examination of other prisoners, from the Twenty-eighth German Division, elicited information which formed the subject of a French army report.
"American assistance," this report observed, "which was underestimated in Germany, because they doubted its value and its opportunity, worries the German High Command more than it will admit. The officers themselves recognize that among other causes it is the principal reason for which Germany hastens to try to end the war and impose peace.
"In addition, the prisoners did not conceal their great surprise at the training and quickness that the Americans have shown against them, nor for the good work accomplished by the artillery, which for three days engaged them, cutting off all food supplies and all reenforcements and causing them very heavy losses—practically all of the officers and twenty-five of the men were killed or wounded in a single infantry company and twelve in a machine-gun section, of which the full quota was seventeen men."
Testimony of a similar tenor was found in a letter taken from the dead body of a German killed in Belleau Wood. It was written to his home people and dated June 21, 1918.
"We are now in the battle front," it said, "and canteens dare not come to us on account of the enemy, for the Americans arebombarding villages fifteen kilometers behind the present front with long-range guns, and you will know that canteen outfits and others who are lying in reserve do not venture very far, for it is not pleasant to 'eat cherries' with Americans. The reason for that is that they have not yet had much experience. American divisions are still too fiery.
"We will also show the Americans how good we are, for day before yesterday we bombarded them heavily with our gas. This had caused them already great losses, for they are not yet sufficiently experienced with gas bombardment. About 400 of us are lying around here.
"We have one corner of the wood and the Americans have the other corner. That is not nice, for all of a sudden he rushes forward and one does not know it beforehand. Therefore one must shoot at every little noise, for one cannot trust them."
In the fighting round Château-Thierry a number of drafted men were thrown into action to replace other units of the established army forces. The latter were men of the regular army, the marine corps, and the old national guard. All these had previous training under arms; and many had been in actual combat in the Philippines, Haiti, Nicaragua, at Vera Cruz, or on the trek into Mexico after Villa. But the drafted men had had no such hardening prior to going into cantonments, where the training, although severe and thorough, was not acquired under conditions of actual warfare with an enemy at hand. The drafted men of the new national army nevertheless went under fire before the kaiser's picked hosts, not as raw recruits, but capable soldiers of mettle and valor. They were more undisciplined, owing to the easy nature of American life, than the young men of other nations; yet they readily accustomed themselves to discipline. They were unfamiliar with war, because of their country's immunity from its terrors; yet they were equal to the emergency when it came.
The exploits of the marine corps in their swing from the original American position to the Torcy-Bouresches-Château-Thierry line stand out in strong relief. The massed efficiency of the rest of the American forces was not the less conspicuous becauseof the marines' achievements. That the latter acquired a certain prominence was perhaps due to the fact that their daring and resourcefulness was never without an element of the picturesque. They were stationed at the point nearest to Paris to protect it; but they did not wait to be attacked. They chose to take their offensive, which continued on their own initiative, advancing beyond the object in view, and gained ground against determined opposition. Their bravery was tempered by judgment, and their steady progress and small losses showed that it was not marred by recklessness.
VAUX AND HAMEL
July, 1918, was a red-letter month in the annals of American belligerency on the European battle field. Events of historic moment, in which American soldiers, fighting shoulder to shoulder with the French, were irresistible protagonists, crowded one upon another. They had got into their stride; they were seasoned and in the pink of condition; no German heroics could withstand them.
As a sort of prelude to their memorable participation in General Foch's offensive stroke of July 18, 1918, the American troops undertook a little offensive of their own to the west of Château-Thierry, and accomplished their object with devastating results to the enemy.
The investment and capture of Belleau Wood to the northwest had completed a chain of operations designed to secure the American positions. But there remained an awkward loop or sag which it was deemed desirable to remove. Its straightening involved the occupation of a little village called Vaux, with its tap on the main railroad line into Château-Thierry, the capture of a knoblike crest of ground designated as Hill 192, on the edge of Clerembauts Wood, and also the routing of Germans from asizable cluster of trees, midway between the two other points and known as the Bois de la Roche. The front of the attack was about two and a half miles, stretching from the village of Triangle, then north to the Bois Clerembauts, across the Paris road, and running south of Vaux. Vaux was an important objective, being considered vital to the Germans for holding Château-Thierry.
The Americans went over Vaux and established themselves just beyond the northern edge of the village, taking in the same rush the hills just to the west of Vaux. This eliminated the German wedge almost completely, the only remaining portion being at the wood of Clerembauts, where the Germans were in a pocket.
A merciless, methodical artillery fire was leveled at the German positions on the morning of July 1, 1918. American guns, big and little, hurled torrents of high explosive and gas shells on the village with a deadly accuracy of aim. By noon Vaux was on fire. Every house had been hit at least once. A shell would fall on some little habitation, a cloud of yellow smoke would arise, and the house was no more. The American guns continued to belch all day with an unemotional, matter-of-fact regularity from the depths of a score of leafy woods.
In the evening the infantry advanced. They swept through the enemy lines and, had their object been to continue the advance, they could have done so with the greatest ease, as virtually everything before them had been cleared.
"The advance started at 6 o'clock, and at 6.25 the first of our men entered the village of Vaux. By 6.40 they had gone through the wood, gaining all their objectives. Our stormy petrels took Vaux in clean-up style. Squads were ready with their hand grenades to clear the cellars, but many of these had been closed by our fire, and the Germans had been buried in them. From others the Germans came out and surrendered. In some there was difficulty, and in that case our men threw in hand grenades in great numbers. Generally, if there were any Germans left, they surrendered.
"Four hours after the men went over the top American telephone lines were working from Vaux back to our headquarters. By 7.30 our ambulances were running into the wrecked village.
"A wounded German brought in about 10 o'clock said that in the morning there had been 4,000 Germans in the village, but after the barrage started some had been withdrawn, leaving only those who could be sheltered in sixty-eight caves in the village. He said the cave in which he took refuge was wrecked by an American shell and that he lay wounded for six hours until the Americans came in."
For adroitness, dispatch, thoroughness, and sustained teamwork, the attack on Vaux was an undoubted triumph for American arms, though a small one. Each man moved to the particular post in the town to which he had been assigned to perform his allotted task. None failed, and the operation was completed with systematic smoothness; as though in a twinkling, it was all over.
With Vaux and the Bois de la Roche in their hands, the Americans took their machine guns to the edge of the wood, expecting a counterattack. It duly came, the Germans launching a fresh regiment upon the lost positions; but an hour later all was calm—the regiment was no more. A second counterattack broke in the small hours of July 3, 1918, accompanied by a heavy bombardment. The enemy lost heavily without regaining a foot of the ground won by the Americans. The Germans advanced in close formation from their trenches without being checked. In some cases they were allowed to approach close to the American line. Then the American gunners, from their hidden nests, mowed down the enemy ranks with showers of bullets.
Later came a fight for the possession of a hill known as 204, situated between Vaux and the Bois de la Roche. The Germans held it and the French, in essaying the task of wresting it from them, invited American detachments to lend a hand. The hill stood just outside the American sector and commanded Château-Thierry. Volunteers were many; most of them were new arrivals who had never faced the Germans. Practically none had been under fire. They were waiting their chance, some swimming in the Marne, others catching baseball, when the call came, and the response was five times the number needed.