During the war we had books which were the product of the spirit of the
hour and its limitations. Among these was my "America in France," which
was written, while we were still expecting the war to last through the
summer of 1919, to describe the gathering and training of the American
Expeditionary Forces, and their actions through the Château-Thierry and
Saint-Mihiel operations. Since the war and the passing of the military
censorship, we have had many hastily compiled histories, and many
"inside" accounts from participants, including commanders, both Allied
and enemy, whose special pleading is, to one familiar with events, no
less evident in their lapses than in their tone.
This book, which continues and supplements "America in France," is not
in the class of the jerry-built histories or the personal narratives.
It aims, as the result of special facilities for information and
observation, to give a comprehensive and intelligent account of the
greatest battle in which Americans ever fought, the Meuse-Argonne.
In the formative period of our army, I was the officer in charge of
press relations, under a senior officer. I was never chief censor of
the A. E. F.: I had nothing to do with the censorship of the soldiers'
mail. After we began operations in the field, my long experience in
war was utilized in making me an observer, who had the freedom of our
lines and of those of our Allies in France. Where the average man in
the army was limited in his observations to his own unit, I had the key
to the different compartments. I saw all our divisions in action and
all the processes of combat and organization. It was gratifying that my
suggestions sometimes led to a broader point of view in keeping with
the character of the immense new army which was being filled into the
mold of the old.
Friends who have read the manuscript complain that I do not give
enough of my own experiences, or enough reminiscences of eminent
personalities; but even in the few places where I have allowed the
personal note to appear it has seemed, as it would to anyone who
had been in my place, a petty intrusion upon the mighty whole of
two million American soldiers, who were to me the most interesting
personalities I met. The little that one pair of eyes could see may
supply an atmosphere of living actuality not to be easily reproduced
from bare records by future historians, who will have at their service
the increasing accumulation of data.
In the light of my observations during the battle, I went over the
fields after the armistice, and studied the official reports, and
talked with the men of our army divisions. For reasons that are now
obvious, the results do not read like the communiqués and dispatches of
the time, which gave our public their idea of an action which could not
be adequately described until it was finished and the war was over. We
had repulses, when heroism could not persist against annihilation by
cross-fire; our men attacked again and again before positions were won;
sometimes they fought harder to gain a little knoll or patch of woods
than to gain a mile's depth on other occasions. Accomplishment must be
judged by the character of the ground and of the resistance.
As the division was our fighting unit, I have described the part that
each division took in the battle. The reader who wearies of details
may skip certain chapters, and find in others that he is following the
battle as a whole in its conception and plan and execution, and in the
human influences which were supreme; but the very piling up of the
records of skill, pluck, and industry of division after division from
all parts of the country, as they took their turn in the ordeal until
they were expended, is accumulative evidence of what we wrought.
The soldier who knew only his division, his regiment, battalion,
company, and platoon, as he lay in chill rain in fox-holes, without a
blanket, under gas, shells, and machine-gun fire, or charged across
the open or up slippery ascents for a few hundred yards more of gains,
may learn, as accurately as my information warrants, in a freshened
sense of comradeship, how and where other divisions fought. He may
think that his division has not received a fair share of attention for
its exploits. I agree with him that it has not, in my realization of
the limitations of space and of capacity to be worthy of my subject.
There are many disputes between divisions as the result of a proud
and natural rivalry, which was possibly too energetically promoted by
the staff in order to force each to its utmost before it staggered in
its tracks from wounds and exhaustion. One division might have done
the pioneer hammering and thrusting which gave a succeeding division
its opportunity. A daring patrol of one division may have entered a
position and been ordered to fall back; troops of another division may
have taken the same position later. There was nothing so irritating as
having to withdraw from hard-won ground because an adjoining unit could
not keep up with the advance. Towns and villages were the landmarks
on the map, with which communiqués and dispatches conjured; but often
the success which made a village on low ground tenable was due to the
taking of commanding hills in the neighborhood. Sometimes troops, in
their eagerness to overcome the fire on their front, found themselves
in the sector of an adjoining division, and mixed units swept over a
position at the same time. In cases of controversy I have tried to
adjust by investigation and by comparing reports. I must have made
errors, whose correction I welcome. To illustrate the full detail
of each division's advance would require several maps as large as a
soldier's blanket. The maps which I have used are intended to indicate
in a general way the movement of each division, and our part on the
western front in relation to our Allies.
There may be surprise that I have not mentioned the names of
individuals below the rank of division commander, and that I have not
identified units lower than divisions. The easy and accepted method
would have been to single out this and that man who had won the Medal
of Honor or the Cross, and this or that battalion or company which had
a theatric part. Indeed, the author could have made his own choices
in distinction. I knew the battle too well; I had too deep a respect
for my privilege to set myself up in judgment, or even to trust to the
judgment of others. Not all the heroes won the Medal or the Cross. The
winners had opportunities; their deeds were officially observed. How
many men deserved them in annihilated charges in thickets and ravines,
but did not receive them, we shall not know until our graves in France
yield their secrets.
I like to think that our men did not fight for Crosses; that they
fought for their cause and their manhood. A battalion which did not
take a hill may have fought as bravely as one which did, and deserve
no less credit for its contribution to the final result. So I have
resisted the temptation to make a gallery of fame, and set in its
niches those favored in the hazard of action, when it was the heroism
and fortitude of all which cannot be too much honored. I have written
of the "team-play" rather than the "stars"; of the whole--a whole
embracing all that legion of Americans at home or abroad who were in
uniform during the war. If I have been discriminate about regulars and
reserves, and frank about many other things, it is in no carping sense.
We fought the war for a cause which requires the truth, now that the
war is over.
I regret that it is not possible for me to give due acknowledgment to
the many officers of our army who, during the actual campaign and since
their demobilization, have facilitated the gathering of my material.
For the preparation of the book I am indebted to the continued
assistance, both in France and at home, of Mr. George Bruner Parks.