ST. MIHIEL AND THE ARGONNE
"'Millions of ages have come and gone,'
The sergeant said as we held his hand;
'They have passed like the mist of the early dawn
Since I left my home in that far-off land.'"
IRONQUILL.
During the next couple of months, while I was laid up with my wound, the
regiment first went to a rest sector near Pont-a-Mousson. There
replacements reached them, wounded men returned, and they gradually
worked up to their full strength again.
They enjoyed themselves fully. It was one of those sectors so common on
the east of the Western Front where by tacit agreement little action
took place. The nature of the country and its distance from the great
centers of France made many parts of the front impracticable for an
offensive either by the Hun or ourselves. In these sectors a division
such as ours, worn by hard fighting, or a division of green or old men,
held the line, a handful of men on each side occupying long stretches. A
few shells would come whistling over during the day and that was all.
Everybody used to look back on their pleasant times in this sector. They
got fresh fish by the thoroughly illegal method of throwing hand
grenades in some near-by ponds, while fresh berries were plentiful even
in the front line. It was midsummer and the weather was pleasantly warm.
Altogether, if you had to be at war, it was about as comfortable as
possible.
An odd incident of this period occurred to a recruit who was sent out
the first night to a listening post. In the listening post was a box on
which the guard sat. At some time during the previous night the Germans
had crept up and put a bomb under this box. After looking around a
little the recruit felt tired and sat down on the box. A violent
explosion followed. Right away a patrol worked out from our lines to
see what had happened. When they got there they looked carefully through
every ditch or clump of bushes in the vicinity, but they could not find
a trace of the man. He was reported as dead, blown to bits. On the march
up into Germany that missing recruit reported back to the regiment on
his return from a German prison camp. Instead of being blown to pieces
he had simply been blown into the German lines. When he came to, he was
being carried to the rear on a stretcher, and he spent the rest of the
war as a prisoner, little the worse for wear, except for a few scars.
Shortly after this the St. Mihiel operation took place. The plan was to
nip off the salient by a simultaneous attack on both sides. Our division
was the left flank unit of the forces attacking on the right of the
salient, being charged with the mission of making a juncture with the
Twenty-sixth Division, which was the right unit of the forces attacking
on the left of the salient. The resistance was so slight that the
operation partook of the nature of a maneuver rather than a battle. Our
losses were practically nil. A large number of prisoners were captured
and a considerable amount of materiel. The reason for this was that the
Germans had determined to abandon the position and were in full retreat
when we attacked. They had been misinformed by their spies, however, and
started their movement about twenty-four hours too late.
The men had a fine time in this attack. While they had been in the Toul
sector a high hill, called Mount Sec, behind the German lines, had given
them a lot of trouble. From it the Germans had been virtually able to
look into our trenches. In the attack they not only took this hill, but
left it far in the rear. Our unit captured a German officers' mess,
including the cook and a fine pig. They promptly made the cook kill the
pig and prepare him for their dinner, which they thoroughly enjoyed.
At another time a German company kitchen came up in the night to one of
our outposts to ask him directions. When they found out their mistake
it was too late, and they were promptly conducted to one of our very
hungry companies.
The value of the St. Mihiel operation to our army was considerable. It
gave our staffs an opportunity to make mistakes which were not too
terribly costly. We fell down particularly on the question of handling
our road traffic. The artillery and the trains in many instances became
hopelessly jammed on the largely destroyed road. Each unit commander
with laudable desire to get forward would do anything to accomplish that
purpose--double back or cut across country. The result was, of course, a
hopeless tangle. This alone would have prevented us carrying on a
further attack, as no army can run away from its echelons of supply.
Immediately on the completion of the attacks the First Division, in
company with a number of others, was withdrawn from the line and moved
west by marching to a position of readiness for the Argonne offensive,
which was to take place in a couple of weeks. The march was made mainly
by night, as every endeavor was being used to make a surprise attack.
The troops bivouacked in the woods, keeping under cover during the day.
The battle was a fierce one. During the first day the Americans made a
clean break through, but the lack of training showed and they were
unable to exploit their success properly. The various units became
dislocated and orders could not be transmitted. The men were gallant,
but gallantry is no use when you do not get orders and when supplies do
not come up. As a result the Germans were able to gather themselves, and
what might have been a rout became a fierce rear-guard action which
lasted for more than a month.
The First Division was held in army reserve and thrown in to take a
particularly hard bit of territory. They were in eleven days in all and
took all their objectives. As a result they were cited individually by
General Pershing in General Orders No. 201. This order--I believe the
only one of its kind issued during the war--follows:
G. H. Q.
AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES,
FRANCE, Nov. 10, 1918.
General Orders
No. 201.
1. The Commander in Chief desires to make of record in the General
Orders of the American Expeditionary Forces his extreme
satisfaction with the conduct of the officers and soldiers of the
First Division in its advance west of the Meuse between October 4th
and 11th, 1918. During this period the division gained a distance
of seven kilometers over a country which presented not only
remarkable facilities for enemy defense but also great difficulties
of terrain for the operation of our troops.
2. The division met with resistance from elements of eight hostile
divisions, most of which were first-class troops and some of which
were completely rested. The enemy chose to defend its position to
the death, and the fighting was always of the most desperate kind.
Throughout the operations the officers and men of the division
displayed the highest type of courage, fortitude, and
self-sacrificing devotion to duty. In addition to many enemy
killed, the division captured one thousand four hundred and seven
of the enemy, thirteen 77-mm. field guns, ten trench mortars, and
numerous machine guns and stores.
3. The success of the division in driving a deep advance into the
enemy's territory enabled an assault to be made on the left by the
neighboring division against the northeastern portion of the Forest
of Argonne, and enabled the First Division to advance to the right
and outflank the enemy's position in front of the division on that
flank.
4. The Commander in Chief has noted in this division a special
pride of service and a high state of morale, never broken by
hardship nor battle.
5. This order will be read to all organizations at the first
assembly formation after its receipt. (14790-A-306.)
By Command of General Pershing:
JAMES W. MCANDREW,
_Chief of Staff_.
Official:
ROBERT C. DAVIS,
_Adjutant General_.
The losses again were very heavy, nearly as heavy as at Soissons. It was
in this battle Lieutenant T. D. Amory was killed while making a daring
patrol. Amory was a gallant young fellow, not more than twenty-two or
twenty-three years of age. He had originally been intelligence officer
for my battalion and had been quite badly wounded by a shell fragment in
the Montdidier sector. As soon as he was cured he reported back to the
regiment and took up his old work as scout officer. When the division
took over, contact had been lost with the enemy. A patrol was
accordingly sent out at once, for it was possible that an attack would
be ordered in the morning. Lieutenant Amory was given forty men and went
out. Signal-corps men were put with him to carry a telephone. It turned
out that the Germans were holding strong points rather than a continuous
line of front. On account of this and the darkness he filtered through
without finding them and unobserved by them. The first word his
battalion commander received was a telephone message from the
signal-sergeant, saying: "We have advanced about one and one half
kilometers and there is no sign of the enemy. The Germans have opened on
us from the right flank." Then: "They are firing on us from three sides.
I believe we are surrounded." And, last: "Lieutenant Amory has just
been shot through the head and killed."
Captain Foster and Captain Wortley also were killed at this time,
besides many other gallant officers and men. Foster when he died was but
twenty-two years old. When he came over with the division, he was
nothing but a curly-headed boy. In the year and a half that he spent in
France he turned from a boy into a man. He was afraid of nothing and had
a rarer virtue in that he was always in good spirits. He had been hit
once before at Soissons. He had been platoon leader and adjutant. Later,
on the death of the company commander, Captain Frey, he had taken
command of a company. He, like Lieutenant Amory, was shot through the
head by a machine gun.
Wortley was an older man and had always been ambitious to join the
regular army. He had served an enlistment in the regulars and had been a
sergeant. Later at the Leavenworth School he had received his
commission. Wortley also had been wounded at Soissons.
Major Youell described to me a personal incident of this battle, which
illustrates very well the dull leathery mind that everyone gets after a
certain amount of bitter fighting and fatigue. As commander of the
Second Battalion he had received orders for an attack. He was not sure
of his objectives. He got out his very best prismatic compass, which he
valued more than any of his other possessions, as it was virtually
impossible to replace it, sighted carefully, determined the direction of
the attack, ordered the advance, put the compass on the ground, and
walked off, leaving it there. When he next thought of it the compass was
gone for good.
Another captain we had was thoroughly courageous personally, but he had
one very bad fault. He could not keep his men under control. Once after
an attack his battalion commander was checking up to see if the
objectives were taken and all units in place. He found the objectives
were taken all right, but that, in the instance of this one company, the
company itself was missing! On the objective was sitting simply the
company commander and his headquarters group. The rest of the company
had missed its direction advancing through a wood and got lost.
I remember this same company commander in another action. We had been
advancing behind tanks, which had all been disabled by direct fire from
the Germans. I went forward to where he was lying with a handful of men
by one of these tanks. I said to him, "Captain, where is your company?"
He said, "I don't know, sir; but the Germans are there." He knew where
the enemy were and was perfectly game to go on and attack them with his
eight or nine men.
Colonel Hjalmar Erickson was commander of the Twenty-sixth Infantry
during this action. He was a fine troop leader and a powerful man
physically. During a battle the higher command naturally want to know
what is going on at the front. It is very difficult for the officer at
the front to furnish these details; often he is busy, sometimes he knows
nothing to tell. Once, during the first Argonne battle, the higher
command called upon Erickson. Nothing was happening, but Erickson was
equal to the occasion.
"Yes, yes, everything is fine. What has happened? Our heavies have just
started firing and it sounds good," was Erickson's reassuring message.
Meanwhile I had been given a Class B rating and detailed as an
instructor at the school of the line at Langres. After I had been there
a short while I saw an officer from the First Division and told him I
was awfully anxious to get back and felt quite up to field work again. A
few days after that General Parker called up some of the commanding
officers in the college on the telephone. I had one obstacle to
overcome. I still had to walk with a cane, and, although this did not
really make any difference to me from a physical standpoint, it was a
question if I could get the medical department to pass me as Class A. We
decided that the best way to do was to take the bull by the horns and go
anyhow. I said good-by to the college one night and went with Major
Gowenlock, of the division staff, directly back to the division. I was
technically A. W. O. L. for a couple of weeks, but they don't
court-martial you for A. W. O. L. if you go in the right direction, and
my orders came through all right. On reporting to General Frank Parker,
who was commanding the division, he assigned me to the command of my own
regiment. When my orders finally came to the school directing me to
report to C. G., of the First Division, for assignment to duty, I was
commanding the regiment in battle.
At about this time three cavalry troopers reported to the Twenty-sixth
Infantry. They said they came from towns where they had been on military
police duty. They stated that they had heard from a man in a hospital
that the First Division was having a lot of fighting and so they had
gone A. W. O. L. to join it. They were attached to one of the companies,
and a letter was sent through regular channels saying that they were
excellent men and we wanted their transfer to a combatant branch of the
service. We phrased it this way in order to tease one of our higher
command who belonged to the cavalry. A long while later, as I recall, an
answer came back directing me to send the men back to their outfit, but
they were all either killed or wounded at that time.
After the division was relieved from the Argonne it went into rest
billets near the town of Ligny, there to rest and receive replacements
before returning into the same battle. Advantage was taken of this brief
period of rest to give leave to some of the enlisted personnel and
officers. This was the first leave most of them had had since they had
been in France. Captain Shipley Thomas took the men under his command to
their area. He described to me on his return how on the way down all the
men would talk about was: "Do you remember how we got that machine-gun
nest? That was where McPherson got his." "Do you remember how Lieutenant
Baxter and Sergeant Dobbs got those seventy-sevens by outflanking and
surprising them?"
By the time they had been at the Y. M. C. A. Leave Area twenty-four
hours they had forgotten all this. For seven days they had a fine time
and their point of view changed entirely. As the train carried them
north through France, when they stopped at a station they would lean out
of the windows and inveigle some unsuspecting M. P. close to the train.
They would ask him with much earnestness what it was like at the front,
explaining to him meanwhile that they were members of the Arkansas
Balloon Corps, and when he got near enough throw soda-water bottles at
his head. Later an indignant epistle reached me demanding an explanation
and directing "an investigation to fix the responsibility." A commanding
officer should know a great many things unofficially, and in this case
my knowledge was all of an unofficial nature, so I was able with a clear
conscience to indorse it back with the suggestion that they investigate
some other unit.
Captain J. B. Card, Captain Richards, and some other of the officers
were given leave. They started immediately for Nice. While they were
traveling down we received orders that we were to go back into the
battle, so wires were awaiting them when they got off the train to
report back to their units immediately. They made a good connection and
spent only three hours at Nice. They reported back smiling and thought
it was a good joke on themselves.
General C. P. Summerall had been promoted to the command of a corps and
General Frank Parker given command of the division. General Parker was
also one of the First Division's own officers. Before getting the
division he had in turn commanded the Eighteenth Infantry and the First
Brigade. He had a fine theory for soldiering. Summarized briefly, it was
that the way to handle troops was to explain to them, in so far as
possible, all that was to take place and the importance of the actions
of each individual man. He had all his officers out with the men as much
as possible. He had them all emphasize to the private the importance of
his individual intelligent action. This is a fine creed for a commanding
officer, as it helps to give him the confidence of his men. Obedience is
absolutely necessary in a soldier, but unintelligent obedience is not
nearly as valuable as intelligent obedience given with confidence in the
man who issues the order. It is intelligent comprehension of the aims of
an order that lends most to its proper execution.