"JULY 18TH"--THE TURN OF THE TIDE
Through the steady growth of Marshal Foch's reserves, by the speedy
arrival of American forces, the fourth German offensive of 1918, the
personally directed effort launched by the Crown Prince on May 27th, had
been brought to a standstill.
The German thrust toward Paris had been stopped by the Americans at
Chateau-Thierry and in the Bois de Belleau. It would be an injustice not
to record the great part played in that fighting by the French Army
attacked, but it would be equally unjust not to specify as the French
have gallantly done, that it was the timely arrival of American strength
that swung the balance against the enemy. For the remainder of that
month of June and up to the middle of July, the fighting was considered
local in its character.
The German offensive had succeeded in pushing forward the enemy front
until it formed a loop extending southward from the Aisne to the Valley
of the Marne. This salient was called the Chateau-Thierry pocket. The
line ran southward from a point east of Soissons to Chateau-Thierry,
where it touched the Marne, thence eastward along both sides of the
river to the vicinity of Oeuilly where it recrossed the Marne and
extended northward to points beyond Rheims.
Chateau-Thierry was thus the peak of the German push--the apex of the
triangle pointing toward Paris. The enemy supplied its forces in this
peak principally by the road that ran southward from Soissons and
touched the Marne at Chateau-Thierry. To the west of this road and just
south of the city of Soissons, is the forest of Villers-Cotterets. The
enemy occupied the northern and eastern limits of the forest and the
remainder of it was in the hands of the French.
This forest has always been considered one of the sentinels of Paris. It
was located on the right flank of the German salient. It was a menace to
that flank, and offered a most attractive opportunity for an Allied
counter offensive from that direction. The Germans were not unmindful of
this.
The enemy knew that in the forest of Villers-Cotterets it would be
possible for Marshal Foch to mobilise his much-feared reserves by taking
advantage of the natural screen provided by the forest. That Foch
reserve still remained a matter for enemy consideration in spite of the
fact that the successive German offensive since March 21st had met with
considerable success with regard to the acquisition of territory. The
Germans, however, had been unable to ascertain whether Foch had been
forced to bring his reserves into the fight.
The situation demanded a full realisation by the enemy of the possible
use of this reserve at any time and they knew that their lines in
Villers-Cotterets Forest offered an ever present invitation for the
sudden application of this reserve strength. Their lines at that point
were necessarily weak by the superiority of the Allied position and, as
a consequence, the Germans guarded this weak spot by holding in reserve
behind the line a number of divisions of the Prussian Guard.
For the same reason, the enemy maintained constant observation of the
French position. Their planes would fly over the forest every day taking
photographs. They sought to discover any evidences indicating that Foch
might be preparing to strike a blow from that place. They made careful
note of the traffic along the roads through the forest. They maintained
a careful watch to ascertain whether new ammunition dumps were being
concealed under the trees. Their observers tried to ascertain whether
any additional hospital arrangements had been made by the French at that
point. Any of these things would have indicated that the French were
preparing to strike through the forest but the Germans found nothing to
support their suspicions.
Nevertheless, they maintained their lines at maximum strength. A belief
existed among the German High Command that an attack might be made on
July 4th, out of consideration to American sentiment. When the attack
did not develop on that day, they then thought that the French might
possibly spring the blow on July 14th, in celebration of their own
national fete day. And again they were disappointed in their surmises.
This protracted delay of an impending blow worried the enemy. The
Germans realised full well that they were fighting against time. Their
faith in the capacity of their submarines to prevent American strength
from reaching the line, had been abandoned. They now knew that every day
that passed meant just that many more American soldiers arriving in
France, and the consequent strengthening of the Allied forces during a
season when the Germans, through their repeated offensives, were
suffering terrible losses and were consequently growing weaker.
So, on July 14th, when the Allied counter-offensive had still failed to
materialise, the German forces, by the necessity for time, moved to a
sudden and faulty decision. They convinced themselves that they had
overestimated the Allied strength. They accepted the belief that the
reason Foch had not attacked was because he did not have sufficient
strength to attack. With this, then, as a basis for their plans, they
immediately launched another offensive, hoping that this might be the
one in which they could deliver the final blow.
This action began on Monday morning, July 15th, and extended from
Chateau-Thierry eastward along the valley of the Maine, northward to
Rheims and thence eastward. By a remarkable coup, one small patrol of
French and Americans deprived the enemy of the element of surprise in
the attack. On the morning of the previous day, this patrol successfully
raided the enemy lines to the east of Rheims and brought back prisoners
from whom it was learned that the Germans intended striking on the
following morning. The objectives of the offensive were the French
cities of Epernay and Chalons. The accomplishment of this effort would
have placed the Rheims salient in the hands of the enemy and brought the
German lines southward to positions straddling the Marne, down the
valley of which they would thus be able to launch another offensive on a
straight road to Paris.
The Germans needed considerable strength for this new effort. To muster
the shock divisions necessary for the attack, they had to weaken their
lines elsewhere. The first reserves that they drew for this offensive
were the Prussian Guard divisions which they had been holding in
readiness in back of the weak spot in their line in the
Villers-Cotterets Forest. Those divisions were hurriedly transported
across the base of the V-shaped salient and thrown into the attack to
the east and the southwest of Rheims.
The Germans found the Allied line prepared to receive them. Their
attacking waves were mowed down with terrific machine gun fire from
French and American gunners, while at the same time heavy artillery
barrages played upon the German back areas with deadly effect in the
massed ranks of the reserves. The fighting was particularly vicious. It
was destined to be the Germans' last action of a grand offensive nature
in the entire war.
On the line east of Rheims, the German assault was particularly strong
in one sector where it encountered the sturdy ranks of the Rainbow
Division of United States National Guardsmen, drawn from a dozen or more
different states in the Union. Regiments from Alabama and New York held
the front line. Iowa and Ohio were close in support. In the support
positions, sturdy youngsters from Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota
manned the American artillery.
The French general commanding the sector had not considered it possible
that this comparatively small American force could withstand the first
onslaught of the Germans. He had made elaborate plans for a withdrawal
to high ground two or three miles southward, from which he hoped to be
able to resist the enemy to greater advantage. But all day long, through
the 15th and the 16th and the 17th of July, those American lines held,
and the advancing waves of German storm troops melted before our guns.
Anticipating a renewal of the attack on the next day, General Gouraud
issued an order on the evening of July 17th. It read:
"_To the French and American Soldiers of the Army._
"We may be attacked from one moment to another. You all feel that a
defensive battle was never engaged in under more favourable
conditions. We are warned, and we are on our guard. We have
received strong reinforcements of infantry and artillery. You will
fight on ground, which, by your assiduous labour, you have
transformed into a formidable fortress, into a fortress which is
invincible if the passages are well guarded.
"The bombardment will be terrible. You will endure it without
weakness. The attack in a cloud of dust and gas will be fierce but
your positions and your armament are formidable.
"The strong and brave hearts of free men beat in your breast. None
will look behind, none will give way. Every man will have but one
thought--'Kill them, kill them in abundance, until they have had
enough.' And therefore your General tells you it will be a glorious
day."
And so the line held, although the French General had in preparation the
plans for withdrawal. When, at the end of the third day, the American
line still occupied the same position, the French General found that his
labour in preparing the plans for withdrawal had been for nothing. He is
reported to have thrown his hands up in the air and remarked, "There
doesn't seem to be anything to do but to let the war be fought out where
the New York Irish and the Alabamans want to fight it."
There was one humorous incident worthy of record in that fighting. Great
rivalry existed between the New York regiment and the Alabama regiment,
both of which happened to be units of the same brigade. Both the New
Yorkers and the Alabamans had a mutual hatred for the German but, in
addition to that, each of them was possessed with a mutual dislike for
the other. There had been frequent clashes of a more or less
sportsmanlike and fistic nature between men from both of the regiments.
On the second day of the fighting, the Germans had sent over low-flying
airplanes which skimmed the tops of our trenches and sprayed them with
machine gun fire. A man from Alabama, who had grown up from childhood
with a squirrel rifle under his arm, accomplished something that had
never been done before in the war. From his position in a trench, he
took careful aim with his rifle and brought down one of the German
planes. It was the first time in the history of the Western Front that a
rifleman on the ground had done this.
When the colonel of the New York regiment heard this, he was wild with
envy and let it be known that there would be trouble brewing unless his
regiment at least equalled the feat. So, on the following day, an
Irishman in the ranks stood up and brought one German plane down to the
credit of the old Sixty-ninth.
* * * * *
To the southwest of Rheims, Germans, who succeeded in breaking through
the lines at one place on the south banks of the Marne, encountered
American reinforcements and were annihilated to the number of five
thousand. At no place did the enemy meet with the success desired.
The Germans had launched their attack at six o'clock on the morning of
July 15th. At Vaux their demonstration was considered a feint, but along
the Marne to the east of Chateau-Thierry, between Fossy and Mezy, the
assaulting waves advanced with fury and determination. At one place,
twenty-five thousand of the enemy crossed the river, and the small
American forces in front of them at that place were forced to retire on
Conde-en-Bire. In a counter attack, we succeeded in driving fifteen
thousand of them back to the north bank, the remaining ten thousand
representing casualties with the exception of fifteen hundred, who were
captured.
Further eastward, the Germans established bridgehead positions on the
south bank of the river at Dormas. The enemy enjoyed a minor success in
an attack on the line near Bligny to the southwest of Rheims, where
Italian troops fought with remarkable valour. Everywhere else the lines
held solid and upon the close of that first night, Marshal Foch said, "I
am satisfied--_Je suis content_."
At dawn the following day, the enemy's futile efforts were resumed along
the river east of Chateau-Thierry. The Germans suffered appalling losses
in their efforts to place pontoon bridges at Gland and at
Mareuil-le-Port. St. Agnan and La Chapelle Monthodon fell into the hands
of Americans on the same day.
On the 17th, the enemy's endeavours to reach Festigny on both banks of
the river came to naught, but to the southeast of Rheims, his assaulting
waves reached the northern limits of Montagne Forest. The Germans were
trying to pinch out the Rheims salient. This was the condition of the
opposing lines on the night of July 17th,--the night that preceded the
day on which the tide of victory turned for the Allies.
Foch was now ready to strike. The Allied Commander-in-Chief had decided
to deliver his blow on the right flank of the German salient. The line
chosen for the Allied assault was located between a point south of
Soissons and Chateau-Thierry. It represented a front of some twenty-five
miles extending southward from the valley of the Aisne to the Marne.
Villers-Cotterets Forest was the key position for the Allies.
It was from out that forest that the full strength of the blow was to
be delivered. To make the blow effective at that most vital point,
Marshal Foch needed a strong and dependable assaulting force. He needed
three divisions of the hardest fighting soldiers that he could get. He
had a considerable army to select from. As Commander-in-Chief of all the
Allied armies, he was in command of all of the British army, all of the
French army, all of the American army, the Italian, the Belgian,--all of
the military forces of the Allied nations of the world. Marshal Foch's
command numbered eleven million bayonets.
The Commander-in-Chief had all of these veteran fighting men from which
he could select the three divisions necessary to deliver this blow upon
which the civilisation of the world depended.
The first division he chose was the Foreign Legion of the French army.
In four years of bloody fighting, the Foreign Legion, composed of
soldiers of fortune from every country in the world, had never been
absent in an attack. It had lived up thoroughly to its reputation as the
most fearless unit of shock troops in the French army.
And then for the other two divisions that were needed, Marshal Foch
selected, from all the eleven million men under his command, the First
and the Second Regular United States Army Divisions. The Second Division
included the immortal Brigade of United States Marines, that had covered
themselves with glory in the Bois de Belleau.
It was a great distinction for those two American divisions to have thus
been selected to play such a vital part in the entire war. It was an
honour that every officer and man in both divisions felt keenly.
I have in my map case a torn and much folded little piece of paper. I
received it that night of July 17th in Villers-Cotterets Forest. A
similar piece of paper was received by every officer in those two
American divisions. To me this piece of paper represents the order which
resulted in victory for the Allied world. It reads:
_Headquarters Third Army Corps American Expeditionary Forces_,
_France, July 17, 1918_
_Memorandum_:
The Third Corps of the American Expeditionary Forces has been
created and consists of the 1st. and 2nd. Divisions, two divisions
that are known throughout France.
Officers and men of the Third Corps, you have been deemed worthy to
be placed beside the best veteran French troops. See that you prove
worthy. Remember that in what is now coming you represent the whole
American nation.
R. L. BULLARD,
Major General,
Commanding 3rd. Corps.
* * * * *
The German planes flying high over Villers-Cotterets Forest all day
during the 17th, had seen nothing. The appearance of all the myriad
roads that cross and recross the forest in all directions was normal.
But that night things began to happen in the forest.
For once at least, the elements were favourable to our cause. There was
no moon. The night was very dark and under the trees the blackness
seemed impenetrable. A heavy downpour of rain began and although it
turned most of the roads into mud, the leafy roof of the forest held
much of the moisture and offered some protection to the thousands of
men who spent the night beneath it. Thunder rolled as I had never heard
it roll in France before. The sound drowned the occasional boom of
distant cannon. At intervals, terrific crashes would be followed by
blinding flashes of lightning as nature's bolts cut jagged crevices in
the sombre sky and vented their fury upon some splintered giant of the
forest.
The immediate front was silent--comparatively silent if one considered
the din of the belligerent elements. In the opposing front lines in the
northern and eastern limits of the forest, German and Frenchmen alike
huddled in their rude shelters to escape the rain.
Then, along every road leading through the forest to the north and to
the east, streams of traffic began to pour. All of it was moving forward
toward the front. No traffic bound for the rear was permitted. Every
inch of available road space was vitally necessary for the forces in
movement. The roads that usually accommodated one line of vehicles
moving forward and one line moving to the rear, now represented two
streams--solid streams--moving forward. In those streams were gun
carriages, caissons, limbers, ammunition carts and grunting tractors
hauling large field pieces.
In the gutters on either side of the road, long lines of American
infantry plodded forward through the mud and darkness. In the occasional
flash of a light, I could see that they were equipped for heavy
fighting. Many of them had their coats off, their sleeves rolled up,
while beads of sweat stood out on the young faces that shown eager
beneath the helmets. On their backs they carried, in addition to their
cumbersome packs, extra shoes and extra bandoliers of cartridges.
From their shoulders were suspended gas masks and haversacks. Their
waists were girded with loaded ammunition belts, with bayonet hanging at
the left side. Some of them wore grenade aprons full of explosives.
Nearly all of them carried their rifles or machine gun parts slung
across their backs as they leaned forward under their burdens and
plunged wearily on into the mud and darkness, the thunder and lightning,
the world destiny that was before them. Their lines were interspersed
with long files of plodding mules dragging small, two-wheeled, narrow
gauge carts loaded down with machine gun ammunition.
Under the trees to either side of the road, there was more movement.
American engineers struggled forward through the underbrush carrying, in
addition to their rifles and belts, rolls of barbed wire, steel posts,
picks and shovels and axes and saws. Beside them marched the swarthy,
undersized, bearded veterans of the Foreign Legion. Further still under
the trees, French cavalry, with their lances slung slantwise across
their shoulders, rode their horses in and out between the giant trunks.
At road intersections, I saw mighty metal monsters with steel plated
sides splotched with green and brown and red paint. These were the
French tanks that were to take part in the attack. They groaned and
grunted on their grinding gears as they manoeuvred about for safer
progress. In front of each tank there walked a man who bore suspended
from his shoulders on his back, a white towel so that the unseen
directing genius in the tank's turret could steer his way through the
underbrush and crackling saplings that were crushed down under the tread
of this modern Juggernaut.
There was no confusion, no outward manifestations of excitement. There
was no rattle of musketry, shouting of commands or waving of swords.
Officers addressed their men in whispers. There was order and quiet save
for the roll of thunder and the eternal dripping of water from the wet
leaves, punctuated now and then by the ear-splitting crashes that
followed each nearby flash of lightning.
Through it all, everything moved. It was a mighty mobilisation in the
dark. Everything was moving in one direction--forward--all with the same
goal, all with the same urging, all with the same determination, all
with the same hope. The forest was ghostly with their forms. It seemed
to me that night in the damp darkness of Villers-Cotterets Forest that
every tree gave birth to a man for France.
All night long the gathering of that sinister synod continued. All night
long those furtive forces moved through the forest. They passed by every
road, by every lane, through every avenue of trees. I heard the
whispered commands of the officers. I heard the sloshing of the mud
under foot and the occasional muffled curse of some weary marcher who
would slip to the ground under the weight of his burden; and I knew, all
of us knew, that at the zero hour, 4:35 o'clock in the morning, all hell
would land on the German line, and these men from the trees would move
forward with the fate of the world in their hands.
There was some suspense. We knew that if the Germans had had the
slightest advance knowledge about that mobilisation of Foch's reserves
that night, they would have responded with a downpour of gas shells,
which spreading their poisonous fumes under the wet roof of the forest,
might have spelt slaughter for 70,000 men.
But the enemy never knew. They never even suspected. And at the tick of
4:35 A. M., the heavens seemed to crash asunder, as tons and tons of hot
metal sailed over the forest, bound for the German line.
That mighty artillery eruption came from a concentration of all the guns
of all calibres of all the Allies that Foch could muster. It was a
withering blast and where it landed in that edge of the forest occupied
by the Germans, the quiet of the dripping black night was suddenly
turned into a roaring inferno of death.
Giant tree trunks were blown high into the air and splintered into
match-wood. Heavy projectiles bearing delayed action fuses, penetrated
the ground to great depth before exploding and then, with the expansion
of their powerful gases, crushed the enemy dugouts as if they were egg
shells.
Then young America--your sons and your brothers and your husbands,
shoulder to shoulder with the French--went over the top to victory.
The preliminary barrage moved forward crashing the forest down about it.
Behind it went the tanks ambling awkwardly but irresistibly over all
obstructions. Those Germans that had not been killed in the first
terrific blast, came up out of their holes only to face French and
American bayonets, and the "Kamerad" chorus began at once.
Our assaulting waves moved forward, never hesitating, never faltering.
Ahead of them were the tanks giving special attention to enemy machine
gun nests that manifested stubbornness. We did not have to charge those
death-dealing nests that morning as we did in the Bois de Belleau. The
tanks were there to take care of them. One of these would move toward a
nest, flirt around it several minutes and then politely sit on it. It
would never be heard from thereafter.
It was an American whirlwind of fighting fury that swept the Germans in
front of it early that morning. Aeroplanes had been assigned to hover
over the advance and make reports on all progress. A dense mist hanging
over the forest made it impossible for the aviators to locate the
Divisional Headquarters to which they were supposed to make the reports.
These dense clouds of vapour obscured the earth from the eyes of the
airmen, but with the rising sun the mists lifted.
Being but a month out of the hospital and having spent a rather
strenuous night, I was receiving medical attention at daybreak in front
of a dressing station not far from the headquarters of Major General
Harbord commanding the Second Division. As I lay there looking up
through the trees, I saw a dark speck diving from the sky. Almost
immediately I could hear the hum of its motors growing momentarily
louder as it neared the earth. I thought the plane was out of control
and expected to see it crash to the ground near me.
Several hundred feet above the tree tops, it flattened its wings and
went into an easy swoop so that its under-gear seemed barely to skim the
uppermost branches. The machine pursued a course immediately above one
of the roads. Something dropped from it. It was a metal cylinder that
glistened in the rays of the morning sun. Attached to it was a long
streamer of fluttering white material. It dropped easily to the ground
nearby. I saw an American signalman, who had been following its descent,
pick it up. He opened the metal container and extracted the message
containing the first aerial observations of the advance of the American
lines. It stated that large numbers of prisoners had been captured and
were bound for the rear.
Upon receipt of this information, Division Headquarters moved forward on
the jump. Long before noon General Harbord, close behind his advancing
troops, opened headquarters in the shattered farm buildings of Verte
Feuille, the first community centre that had been taken by our men that
morning. Prisoners were coming back in droves.
I encountered one column of disarmed Germans marching four abreast with
the typical attitude of a "Kamerad" procession. The first eight of the
prisoners carried on their shoulders two rudely constructed litters made
from logs and blankets. A wounded American was on one litter and a
wounded Frenchman on the other.
A number of German knapsacks had been used to elevate the shoulders of
both of the wounded men so that they occupied positions half sitting and
half reclining. Both of them were smoking cigarettes and chatting gaily
as they rode high and mighty on the shoulders of their captives, while
behind them stretched a regal retinue of eight hundred more.
As this column proceeded along one side of the road, the rest of the
roadway was filled with men, guns and equipment all moving forward.
Scottish troops in kilts swung by and returned the taunts which our men
laughingly directed at their kilts and bare knees.
Slightly wounded Americans came back guarding convoys of prisoners. They
returned loaded with relics of the fighting. It was said that day that
German prisoners had explained that in their opinion, the British were
in the war because they hated Germany and that the French were in the
war because the war was in France, but that Americans seemed to be
fighting to collect souveniers.
I saw one of these American souvenier collectors bound for the rear. In
stature he was one of the shortest men I had ever seen in our uniform.
He must have spent long years in the cavalry, because he was frightfully
bowlegged. He was herding in front of him two enormous German prisoners
who towered head and shoulders above him.
He manifested a confidence in his knowledge of all prisoners and things
German. Germans were "foreigners." "Foreigners" spoke a foreign
language. Therefore to make a German understand you, it was only
necessary to speak with them in a foreign language. French was a foreign
language so the bowlegged American guard made use of his limited
knowledge.
"Allay! Allay! Allay veet t'ell outer here," he urged his charges.
He was wearing his helmet back on his head so that there was exposed a
shock of black, blood-matted hair on his forehead. A white bandage ran
around his forehead and on the right side of his face a strip of cotton
gauze connected with another white bandage around his neck. There was a
red stain on the white gauze over the right cheek.
His face was rinsed with sweat and very dirty. In one hand he carried a
large chunk of the black German war bread--once the property of his two
prisoners. With his disengaged hand he conveyed masses of the food to
his lips which were circled with a fresco of crumbs.
His face was wreathed in a remarkable smile--a smile of satisfaction
that caused the corners of his mouth to turn upward toward his eyes. I
also smiled when I made a casual inventory of the battlefield loot with
which he had decorated his person. Dangling by straps from his right hip
were five holsters containing as many German automatic pistols of the
Lueger make, worth about $35 apiece. Suspended from his right shoulder
by straps to his left hip, were six pairs of highly prized German field
glasses, worth about $100 apiece. I acquired a better understanding of
his contagious smile of property possession when I inquired his name and
his rank. He replied:
"Sergeant Harry Silverstein."
Later, attracted by a blast of extraordinary profanity, I approached one
of our men who was seated by the roadside. A bullet had left a red
crease across his cheek but this was not what had stopped him. The
hobnail sole of his shoe had been torn off and he was trying to fasten
it back on with a combination of straps. His profane denunciations
included the U. S. Quartermaster Department, French roads, barbed wire,
hot weather and, occasionally, the Germans.
"This sure is a hell of a mess," he said, "for a fellow to find himself
in this fix just when I was beginning to catch sight of 'em. I enlisted
in the army to come to France to kill Germans but I never thought for
one minute they'd bring me over here and try to make me run 'em to
death. What we need is greyhounds. And as usual the Q. M. fell down
again. Why, there wasn't a lassoe in our whole company."
* * * * *
The prisoners came back so fast that the Intelligence Department was
flooded. The divisional intelligence officer asked me to assist in the
interrogation of the captives. I questioned some three hundred of them.
An American sergeant who spoke excellent German, interrogated. I sat
behind a small table in a field and the sergeant would call the
prisoners forward one by one. In German he asked one captive what branch
of the service he belonged to. The prisoner wishing to display his
knowledge of English and at the same time give vent to some pride,
replied in English.
"I am of the storm troop," he said.
"Storm troop?" replied the American sergeant, "do you know what we are?
We are from Kansas. We are Cycloners."
Another German student of English among the prisoners was represented in
the person of a pompous German major, who, in spite of being a captive,
maintained all the dignity of his rank. He stood proudly erect and held
his head high. He wore a disgusted look on his face, as though the
surroundings were painful. His uniform was well pressed, his linen was
clean, his boots were well polished, he was clean shaven. There was not
a speck of dust upon him and he did not look like a man who had gone
through the hell of battle that morning. The American sergeant asked him
in German to place the contents of his pockets on the table.
"I understand English," he replied superciliously, with a strong accent,
as he complied with the request. I noticed, however, that he neglected
to divest himself of one certain thing that caught my interest. It was a
leather thong that extended around his neck and disappeared between the
first and second buttons of his tunic. Curiosity forced me to reach
across the table and extract the hidden terminal of that thong. I found
suspended on it the one thing in all the world that exactly fitted me
and that I wanted. It was a one-eyed field glass. I thanked him.
He told me that he had once been an interne in a hospital in New York
but happening to be in Germany at the outbreak of the war, he had
immediately entered the army and had risen to the rank of a major in the
Medical Corps. I was anxious for his opinion, obvious as it might have
seemed.
"What do you think of the fighting capacity of the American soldier?" I
asked him.
"I do not know," he replied in the accented but dignified tones of a
superior who painfully finds himself in the hands of one considered
inferior. "I have never seen him fight. He is persuasive--yes.
"I was in a dugout with forty German wounded in the cellar under the
Beaurepaire Farm, when the terrible bombardment landed. I presume my
gallant comrades defending the position died at their posts, because
soon the barrage lifted and I walked across the cellar to the bottom of
the stairs and looked up.
"There in the little patch of white light on the level of the ground
above me, I saw the first American soldier I have seen in the war. But
he did not impress me much as a soldier. I did not like his carriage or
his bearing.
"He wore his helmet far back on his head. And he did not have his coat
on. His collar was not buttoned; it was rolled back and his throat was
bare. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. And he had a grenade in
each hand.
"Just then he looked down the stairs and saw me--saw me standing
there--saw me, a major--and he shouted roughly, 'Come out of there, you
big Dutch B----d, or I'll spill a basketful of these on you.'"
All through that glorious day of the 18th, our lines swept forward
victoriously. The First Division fought it out on the left, the Foreign
Legion in the centre and the Second Division with the Marines pushed
forward on the right. Village after village fell into our hands. We
captured batteries of guns and thousands of prisoners.
On through the night the Allied assault continued. Our men fought
without water or food. All road space behind the lines was devoted to
the forwarding of reserves, artillery and munitions. By the morning of
the 19th, we had so far penetrated the enemy's lines that we had crossed
the road running southward from Soissons to Chateau-Thierry, thereby
disrupting the enemy's communications between his newly established base
and the peak of his salient. Thus exposed to an enveloping movement that
might have surrounded large numbers, there was nothing left for the
Germans to do but to withdraw.
The Allied army commander, who directed the Americans on that glorious
day, was General Joseph Mangin. His opinion of the immortal part played
on that day by those two American divisions may be seen in the following
order which he caused to be published:
_Officers, Noncommissioned Officers, and Soldiers of the American Army_:
Shoulder to shoulder with your French comrades, you threw yourselves
into the counter-offensive begun on July 18th. You ran to it as if
going to a feast. Your magnificent dash upset and surprised the
enemy, and your indomitable tenacity stopped counter attacks by his
fresh divisions. You have shown yourselves to be worthy sons of your
great country and have gained the admiration of your brothers in
arms.
Ninety-one cannon, 7,200 prisoners, immense booty, and ten
kilometres of reconquered territory are your share of the trophies
of this victory. Besides this, you have acquired a feeling of your
superiority over the barbarian enemy against whom the children of
liberty are fighting. To attack him is to vanquish him.
American comrades, I am grateful to you for the blood you generously
spilled on the soil of my country. I am proud of having commanded
you during such splendid days and to have fought with you for the
deliverance of the world.
The Germans began backing off the Marne. From that day on, their
movement to date has continued backward. It began July 18th. Two
American Divisions played glorious parts in the crisis. It was their
day. It was America's day. It was the turn of the tide.