ST. MIHIEL
Historians and military experts are fond of taking one particular battle
or campaign, and saying: "This was decisive." It enables one to simplify
history, to be sure, but often any such process is more simple than
truthful. After all, every battle is to some degree decisive, and the
great actions of the war are so closely connected with smaller ones that
it is difficult to separate them. It is the fashion now to speak of the
second battle of the Marne as the deciding factor in the war. Indeed,
there is one school of strategists which goes back to the first Marne,
and speaks as if nothing which happened after that really mattered.
In this spirit, it is true, that the great tide in the allied fortunes
which began at Chateau-Thierry and swept higher and higher until the
Germans had been smashed in the second battle of the Marne, did put a
new complexion on the war. The battle definitely robbed the German
offensive of its threat. Paris was saved, in all human probability, from
ever coming into danger again during the course of the war.
Nevertheless, it is far-fetched to take the attitude that the war had
already been won early in August. It was evident by this time that the
German Army had suffered a great defeat. Perhaps a great disaster would
be better. And yet other armies have suffered great disasters and grown
again to power and success. The plight of the Germans was certainly
little worse than that of the Italians after the German offensive, and
yet everybody knows that the Italian Army came back from that defeat to
final victory.
Morale is subject to miracles, and soldiers can be born again. There
might have been combinations of circumstances which would have permitted
the German Army to recover from its fearful defeat and find again its
old arrogance and confidence. Only it had no rest. It is fitting, then,
that the men of all the armies who completed the downfall of the Germans
in the marvellous campaigns at the close of the year 1918 should have
due credit. Their work was also decisive. No one can tell what would
have happened to the German Army if it had not been subjected to the
steady pounding of the allied armies.
No attempt will be made here to estimate the relative importance of the
work done by the various allied armies in the closing campaigns of the
war. This is an interesting, although somewhat ungrateful, task for
military experts. In this account we are dealing simply with the
fortunes of the American Army. It might not be amiss to suggest that the
final victories of the war were won by team-play, and that in such
combinations of effort the praise should go to all, just as the labor
does.
There need be no controversy, however, about the battle of St. Mihiel.
This was an American action. It was under the command of General
Pershing himself, and his forces were made up almost entirely of
Americans. The French acted in an advisory capacity, and we were
dependent, in part, upon them for certain material. General Pershing in
his official report says: "The French were generous in giving us
assistance in corps and army artillery, with its personnel." We were
also under obligation to the French for tanks, but here they were not
able to assist us so liberally, because they had barely enough tanks for
their own use. One of the surprising features of the St. Mihiel victory
is that it was achieved with comparatively slight tank preparation.
St. Mihiel represented the biggest staff problem attempted by the
American Army up to that time. It was, of course, a battle which dwarfed
any previous action in the military history of America. Compared to the
battle of St. Mihiel, the whole Spanish-American War was a mere patrol
encounter, and Gettysburg itself a minor engagement. With the force at
his command, and the weapons, General Pershing could have annihilated
the army of either Grant or Lee in half an hour. Some idea of the
magnitude of the battle may be gathered from the report of General
Pershing: that he had under his command approximately 600,000 troops, or
four times the peace standing of the entire American military
establishment before the war.
It is difficult enough to move an army of that size, with its supplies
and its guns, under any conditions, but the plan for the St. Mihiel
offensive called for a surprise attack, and it was necessary to make all
the troop movements at night. In spite of the vaunted efficiency of the
German intelligence, there seems to be evidence that their high command
had little inkling of the magnitude of the blow impending or the date on
which it would fall. The St. Mihiel salient had been so long a fixture
in the geography of the battle-lines that no change was expected.
In preparation for the offensive the First Army was organized on August
10, under the personal command of General Pershing. Following this move
the Americans took over part of the line. This became a permanent
American sector. Pershing took command of the sector on August 30. At
that time the sector under his command began at Port sur Seille, and
extended through a point opposite St. Mihiel, then twisting north to a
point opposite Verdun. The preparations for the offensive included, in
addition to guns, men, and tanks, the greatest concentration which the
American Army had ever known in transport, ambulances, and aircraft.
Most of the planes in action were of French make, and some were flown by
the French, but there were a few of our manufacture, for on August 7 an
American squadron, completely equipped by American production, made its
appearance at the front.
The preparations for the offensive were minute as well as extensive. It
is, perhaps, worth noting as a sample of the thoroughness with which the
American Army went about the job that no less than 100,000 maps were
issued which showed the character of the terrain around St. Mihiel, with
all the natural and artificial defenses carefully noted, and some
estimate of the strength in which the enemy was likely to be found at
each point. The army had 6,000 telephone instruments, and at least 5,000
miles of wire, so there was no difficulty in keeping in touch with what
the men were doing at every point. The attack began at 1 A.M. on
September 12. The American artillery had been crowded into the sector to
such an extent that the German artillery was completely dominated. The
bombardment lasted for four hours, and then the troops went forward,
preceded by a few tanks, but there were points where infantry went
forward without the aid of these auxiliaries. It was misty when the
seven divisions in the front line sprang out of their trenches, and this
helped to keep losses down. Indeed, throughout the battle the resistance
proved much less determined than had been anticipated.
Although the bombardment had been short, most of the wire had been cut.
There remained a few jobs, however, for the wire-cutters, and for other
soldiers armed with torpedoes. With one method or the other our men
smashed what was left of the wire guarding the enemy first-line
trenches. And then the waves came on and over. There was little
resistance in the first line, for the Germans in these positions were
pretty well demoralized by the terrific artillery pounding which they
had received and the sight of thousands upon thousands of Americans
rushing upon them from out of the fog. For the most part they
surrendered without resistance. As the advance progressed resistance
became stiffer at some points, but the attackers kept pretty generally
up to schedule, or ahead of it. Thiaucourt was taken by the First Corps.
The Fourth Corps fought its way through Nonsard. The Second Colonial
Corps was not asked to make a very great advance, but it had the most
difficult terrain over which to work. It had won all its objects early
in the day. A difficult task was also set for the Fifth Corps, which
took three ridges and then immediately had to repulse a counter-attack.
St. Mihiel fell early in the day. And in an incredibly short period a
salient which had been in the enemy hands for almost four years was
pinched out of existence.
Everybody was delighted to find that in one respect the American
preparations had been too extensive. No less than thirty-five
hospital-trains had been assembled back of the attacking forces, and
there were beds for 16,000 men in the advanced areas, with 55,000 a
little farther back. As a matter of fact, less than one-tenth of these
facilities proved necessary, for the American casualties were only
7,000, and many of these were slight. The German General Staff always
maintained that it had anticipated the attack and that its men were
under orders to retire, as the salient was of no strategic importance.
The last assertion may be true, but there seems to be little to support
the rest, for the total of prisoners was 16,000, with 443 guns. The
quantity of material captured was enormous. In a single depot there were
found 4,000 shells for 77's and 350,000 rounds of rifle cartridges.
Among the other assorted booty were 200 machine-guns, 42 trench-mortars,
30 box-cars, 4 locomotives, 30,000 hand-grenades, 13 trucks, and 40
wagons. The number of German helmets which fell to the doughboys was
naturally countless.
The attack was so completely successful and ran so closely to schedule
that there were few surprises. A little group of newspaper men, however,
were frank to admit that they had encountered one. Following closely
upon the heels of the attacking troops, they came to a village which was
being heavily shelled by the Germans. Accordingly, the newspaper men
took refuge in a dugout until such time as the opportunity for
observation should be more favorable. Coming from the other direction,
a group of German prisoners entered the same village. They had
surrendered to one of the waves of onrushing Americans, but everybody
was too busy to conduct them personally to the rear. They had merely
been instructed to keep marching until they encountered some American
officers or doughboys who were not otherwise engaged, and then surrender
themselves. When the shells fell fast about them the Germans darted for
the dugout in which the newspaper men had previously taken refuge. The
correspondents were astounded and disturbed when sixteen field-gray
soldiers came tumbling in upon them. They could only imagine that at
some point the Germans had struck back and that the counter-attack had
broken through. And the correspondents admit that without a moment's
hesitation they gave one look at the Germans and then raised their
weaponless hands and cried "Kamerad." The perplexing feature of the
situation was that the Germans did exactly the same thing, and a
complete deadlock ensued until a squad of doughboys happened along that
way and took the Germans in charge.
Both sides in the battle were willing to admit that their foemen had
fought with courage. While it is true that the first waves of the
American Army had an easy time, there was stiff but ineffectual
resistance by German machine-gunners later in the day. Many of these men
served their guns without offering surrender, and had to be bombed or
bayoneted. In a document by a German intelligence officer, which fell
into American hands much later in the war, a very frank tribute was paid
to the extraordinary courage of the Americans. The German officer said
that they seemed to be absolutely without fear on the offensive, and
must be reckoned with as shock troops, although they sometimes fought
greenly. He reported, however, that American leadership was less
impressive, and stated that the American Army might have gone much
farther if it had been more quick to take advantage of its early
success. But this would seem to be a mere effort to whistle up courage
in the German General Staff, for a consideration of the territory which
fell into American hands as a result of the attack shows some measure of
its success. This comprised 152 square miles which was recovered from
the Germans. And in this liberated district were 72 villages.
And yet the importance of the battle can hardly be measured in territory
regained, and much less in booty or in guns. "This signal success of the
American Army in its first offensive was of prime importance," wrote
General Pershing in his report to Secretary Baker. "The Allies found
that they had a formidable army to aid them, and the enemy learned
finally that he had one to reckon with." Moreover, the pinching out of
the St. Mihiel salient put the American Army in a position to threaten
Metz. This threat was one of the factors which caused the enemy to
realize a few months later that further resistance could not hope to
check the allied armies for any considerable time.
The divisions employed at St. Mihiel comprised many of our best units.
Among the divisions engaged were the Eighty-second, the Ninetieth, the
Fifth, and the Second, which made up the First Corps, under
Major-General Hunter Liggett. In the Third Corps were the Eighty-ninth,
the Forty-second, and the First Divisions, under Major-General Joseph
T. Dickman. The Fifth Corps, under Major-General George H. Cameron, had
the Twenty-sixth Division and a French division. In reserve were the
Seventy-eighth, Third, Thirty-fifth, and Ninety-first Divisions. The
Eighteenth and Thirty-third were also available.