INTO THE TRENCHES
After months of training behind the lines the doughboys began to long
for commencement. It came late in October. The point selected for the
trench test of the Americans was in a quiet sector. The position lay
about twelve miles due east from Nancy and five miles north of
Luneville. It extended roughly from Parroy to Saint-Die. Even after the
entry of the Americans the sector remained under French command. In
fact, the four battalions of our troops which made up the first American
contingent on the fighting-line were backed up by French reserves. No
better training sector could have been selected, for this was a quiet
front. American officers who acted as observers along this line for
several days before the doughboys went in found that shelling was
restricted and raids few. Many villages close behind the lines on either
side were respected because of a tacit agreement between the contending
armies. French and Germans sent war-weary troops to the Luneville sector
to rest up. It also served to break in new troops without subjecting
them to an oversevere ordeal, so that they might learn the tricks of
modern warfare gradually.
Of course, even quiet sectors may become suddenly active, and care was
taken to screen the movements of the soldiers carefully. It proved
impossible, however, to keep the move a complete mystery, for when
camion after camion of tin-hatted Americans moved away from the training
area the villagers could not fail to suspect that something was about to
happen. Perhaps these suspicions grew stronger when each group of
fighting men sang loudly and cheerfully that they were "going to hang
the Kaiser to a sour apple-tree."
The weather was distinctly favorable for the movement of troops. One of
the blackest nights of the month awaited the Americans at the front.
Rain fell, but not hard enough to impede transportation. Still, such
weather was something of a moral handicap. Many of the newcomers would
have been glad to take a little shelling if they could have had a bit
of a moon or a few stars to light their way to the trenches. Instead
they groped their way along roads which were soft enough to deaden every
sound. A wind moaned lightly overhead and the strict command of silence
made it impossible to seek the proper antidote of song. One or two men
struck up "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching," as they headed
for the front, but they were quickly silenced.
The march began about nine o'clock, after the soldiers had eaten
heartily in a little village close to the lines. At the very edge of
this village stood a cheerful inn and a moving-picture theatre. The
doughboys looked a little longingly at both houses of diversion before
they swung round the bend and followed the black road which led to the
trench-line. The people of the village did not seem to be much excited
by the fact that history was being made before their eyes. They had seen
so many troops go by up that road that they could achieve no more than a
friendly interest. They did not crowd close about the marchers as the
people had done in Paris.
Seemingly the Germans had not been able to ascertain the time set for
the coming of the Americans. The roads were not shelled at all. In fact,
the German batteries were even more indolent than usual at this point.
The relief was effected without incident, although a few stories drifted
back about enthusiastic poilus who had greeted their new comrades with
kisses.
The artillery beat the infantry into action. They had to have a start in
order to get their guns into place, and some fifteen hours before the
doughboys went into the trenches America had fired the first shot of the
war against Germany. Alexander Arch, a sergeant from South Bend,
Indiana, was the man who pulled the lanyard. The shot was a shrapnel
shell and was directed at a German working-party who were presuming on
the immunity offered by a misty dawn. They scattered at the first shot,
but it was impossible to tell whether it caused any casualties. When the
working-party took cover there were no targets which demanded immediate
attention, and the various members of the gun crew were allowed the
privilege of firing the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh,
eighth, and ninth shots of the war. After that, shooting at the Germans
ceased to become a historical occasion, but was a mere incident in the
routine of duty, and was treated as such.
The only unusual incident which seriously threatened the peace of mind
of the infantrymen in their first night in the trenches was the flash of
a green rocket which occurred some fifteen or twenty minutes after they
arrived. They had been taught that a green rocket would be the alarm for
a gas attack, but this particular signal came from the German trenches
and had no message for the Americans. The Germans may have suspected the
presence of new troops, for the men were just a bit jumpy, as all
newcomers to the trenches are, and a few took pot-shots at objects out
in No Man's Land which proved to be only stakes in the barbed wire or
tufts of waving grass.
Although the Germans made the first successful raid, the Americans took
the first prisoner. He was captured only a few nights after the coming
of the doughboys. A patrol picked him up close to the American wire. He
was a mail-carrier, and in cutting across lots to reach some of his
comrades he lost his way and wandered over to the American lines.
Although he was surprised, he was not willing to surrender, but made an
attempt to escape after he had been ordered to halt. One of the
doughboys fired at him as he ran and he was carried into the American
trenches badly wounded. He died the next day.
Beginning on the night of November 2 and extending over into the early
morning of November 3, the Germans made a successful raid against the
American lines immediately after a relief. After a severe preliminary
bombardment a large party of raiders came across. The bombardment had
cut the telephone wires of the little group of Americans which met the
attack and they were completely isolated. They fought bravely but
greenly. Three Americans were killed, five were wounded, and twelve were
captured. The Germans retired quickly with their prisoners.
American morale was not injured by this first jab of the Germans. On the
other hand, it made the doughboys mad, and, better than that, made them
careful. A German attempt to repeat the raid a few nights later was
repulsed. The three men who were killed in this first clash were buried
close to the lines, while minute-guns fired shells over the graveyard
toward the Germans. General Bordeaux, who commanded the French division
at this point, saluted before each of the three graves, and then turned
to the officers and men drawn up before him and said:
"In the name of the division, in the name of the French Army, and in the
name of France, I bid farewell to Private Enright, Private Gresham, and
Private Hay of the American Army.
"Of their own free will they had left a prosperous and happy country to
come over here. They knew war was continuing in Europe; they knew that
the forces fighting for honor, love of justice and civilization were
still checked by the long-prepared forces serving the powers of brutal
domination, oppression, and barbarity. They knew that efforts were still
necessary. They wished to give us their generous hearts, and they have
not forgotten old historical memories while others forget more recent
ones. They ignored nothing of the circumstances and nothing had been
concealed from them--neither the length and hardships of war, nor the
violence of battle, nor the dreadfulness of new weapons, nor the perfidy
of the foe.
"Nothing stopped them. They accepted the hard and strenuous life; they
crossed the ocean at great peril; they took their places on the front by
our side, and they have fallen facing the foe in a hard and desperate
hand-to-hand fight. Honor to them. Their families, friends, and fellow
citizens will be proud when they learn of their deaths.
"Men! These graves, the first to be dug in our national soil and but a
short distance from the enemy, are as a mark of the mighty land we and
our allies firmly cling to in the common task, confirming the will of
the people and the army of the United States to fight with us to a
finish, ready to sacrifice so long as is necessary until victory for the
most noble of causes, that of the liberty of nations, the weak as well
as the mighty. Thus the deaths of these humble soldiers appear to us
with extraordinary grandeur.
"We will, therefore, ask that the mortal remains of these young men be
left here, be left with us forever. We inscribe on the tombs: 'Here lie
the first soldiers of the Republic of the United States to fall on the
soil of France for liberty and justice.' The passer-by will stop and
uncover his head. Travellers and men of heart will go out of their way
to come here to pay their respective tributes.
"Private Enright! Private Gresham! Private Hay! In the name of France I
thank you. God receive your souls. Farewell!"
After the Germans had identified Americans on the Luneville front it was
supposed that they might maintain an aggressive policy and make the
front an active one. The Germans were too crafty for that. They realized
that the Americans were in the line for training, and so they gave them
few opportunities to learn anything in the school of experience. In
spite of the lack of co-operation by the Germans, the doughboys gained
valuable knowledge during their stay in the trenches. There were several
spirited patrol encounters and much sniping. American aviators got a
taste of warfare by going on some of the bombing expeditions of the
French. They went as passengers, but one American at least was able to
pay for his passage by crawling out from his seat and releasing a bomb
which had become jammed. When every battalion had been in the trenches
the American division was withdrawn, and for a short time in the winter
of 1917 there was no American infantry at the front.
Curiously enough, the honor of participation in a major engagement
hopped over the infantry and came first to the engineers. It came quite
by accident. The 11th Engineers had been detailed for work behind the
British front. Early on the morning of November 30 four officers and 280
men went to Gouzeaucourt, a village fully three miles back of the line.
But this was the particular day the Germans had chosen for a surprise
attack. The engineers had hardly begun work before the Germans laid a
barrage upon the village, and almost before the Americans realized what
was happening German infantry entered the outskirts of the place while
low-flying German planes peppered our men with machine-gun fire. The
engineers were unarmed, but they picked up what weapons they could find
and used shovels and fists as well as they retired before the German
attack. According to the stories of the men, one soldier knocked two
Germans down with a pickaxe before they could make a successful bayonet
thrust. He was eventually wounded but did not fall into the hands of the
enemy. Seventeen of the engineers were captured, but the rest managed to
fight their way out or take shelter in shell-holes, where they lay until
a slight advance by the British rescued them.
Having had a taste of fighting, the engineers were by no means disposed
to have done with it. The entire regiment, including the survivors of
Gouzeaucourt, were ordered first to dig trenches and then to occupy
them. This time they were armed with rifles as well as intrenching-tools.
They held the line until reinforcements arrived.
The conduct of the engineers was made the subject of a communication
from Field-Marshal Haig to General Pershing. "I desire to express to you
my thanks and those of the British engaged for the prompt and valuable
assistance rendered," wrote the British commander, "and I trust that
you will be good enough to convey to these gallant men how much we all
appreciate their prompt and soldierly readiness to assist in what was
for a time a difficult situation."