The ground of the Verdun battle--The Crown Prince's observatory--The
Third Corps to move the right flank down the Meuse--Businesslike
quality of the 4th Division--A marshy front and no roads--Swinging
movement of the Blue Ridge Division--The Illinois Division to secure
the right flank--Dominating heights east of the Meuse.
At this point let us consider the missions of the three corps.
Liggett's First, with the 77th, 28th, and 35th Divisions, had the
problem of the left flank, the conquest of the Argonne Forest, the
valley of the Aire, and the heights of the eastern valley wall, which
was so essential to supporting the movement of Cameron's Fifth Corps
in the center. The Fifth, with the 91st, 37th, and 79th Divisions,
was to make the bulge of the sweep toward the main crests of the
whale-back. Its objective on the first day was the town of Montfaucon,
whose whitish ruins on the distant hilltop pretty well commanded all
the terrain on the corps front. Here the Crown Prince through his
telescope, at the safe distance which was in keeping with the strong
sense of self-preservation of the Hohenzollerns, had watched some of
the attacks on Verdun.
This sector was near enough to the battleground of Verdun to have
participated in some of the volume of shell-fire which had left no
square yard of earth in No Man's Land, or for half a mile on either
side of the trenches, untouched by explosions. The thicker the
shell-craters, the more difficult it is to keep uniformity of movement.
They are useful for cover for a halted charge, but for a charge that is
intended to go through, as ours was, they meant that troops must pick
their way over unstable footing. In view of the possibilities of French
counter-attacks the Germans had hardly been negligent in perfecting all
their defenses during the Verdun battle.
The groups of woods south of Montfaucon and north and west of Avocourt
was the heart of the German defense against the Fifth Corps. Against
Cheppy Wood which covered Vauquois the French, in 1915 when small
offensives were still the rule, had made many attacks in order to gain
the dominating position of Vauquois; and later, in the Verdun battle
and subsequent offensive operations by the French, the Germans had used
the woods as shelter for reserves, which drew persistent shell-fire of
large caliber from the French. A thick second growth had sprouted up
around the shell-craters and broken timbers, which afforded concealment
to the enemy and confused any platoon or company commander in keeping
his men together and in touch with the platoon or company on either
flank.
The assignment of such an ambitious objective to these three divisions
required an abounding faith in their manhood, initiative, and training
upon the part of an audacious command. I may add that before the attack
the Germans had taken one prisoner from the 79th Division, which
they thus identified; they did not know of the presence of the other
two divisions. As the 79th had never been in line before, they were
warranted in thinking that a green division could be there for no other
purpose than the usual trench training which we had systematically
given all our divisions before they went into serious action. When the
79th came rushing on toward Montfaucon on the morning of the 26th,
the enemy's surprise was warranted by all their canons of military
experience.
The Third Corps on the right flank, with its right on the Meuse River,
had in a broad sense the same mission as the First in supporting the
main drive toward the whale-back by the Fifth. On its left in _liaison_
with the 79th was the 4th, the only regular division in the attack,
under Major-General John L. Hines, whose ability was later rewarded
by a corps command. Regular divisions had a certain advantage in the
assignment of experienced professional officers and in the confidence
of the staff in the value of regular traditions which must be
maintained. Though in detached units, the 4th had had a thorough trial
in the Marne counter-offensive of July 18th to 24th. Then it had been
swung round, and as an intact division had taken over from the 42nd,
after the heights of the Ourcq were gained, for the final pursuit to
the Vesle, where it had a taste of shells, gas, and machine-gun fire
in the "pocket" before it was relieved by the 77th and started for
Saint-Mihiel. The 4th was a thoroughly regular and singularly efficient
division, disinclined to advertisement, doing its duty systematically
and unflinchingly.
At the outset of its advance it would have to cross marshy ground and
the Forges Brook, from which the footbridges had naturally been removed
by the enemy. On the left it was to keep up with the swift progress
of the 79th, with its course dominated on the left by the Montfaucon
heights, and on the right by the heights east of the Meuse--of which
we shall hear much before the story of the Meuse-Argonne battle is
told. There were wicked slopes and woods to be conquered. Indeed, its
position on the right flank of the 79th confronted as stern and complex
difficulties as that of the 37th on the left flank of the 79th.
On its right was the 80th Division under Major-General Adelbert
Cronkhite, sturdy, thick-set, cut out of sandstone, who faced the
world all four-square with his Blue Ridge men. The 80th had done well
at the British front, and had been in reserve at Saint-Mihiel. Though
it had its own divisional artillery and its units complete, this was
its first experience in a drive through first-line fortifications for
an extensive objective. If it had not so far to go as the 4th, its
trying maneuver in swinging toward the Meuse included passing between
the Juré and Forges Woods, which, unless cleared of the enemy, would
enfilade its advance with machine-gun fire.
The 33rd Division, Illinois National Guard, had the extreme right. I
have mentioned already the preparation which the 33rd had had in the
August offensive with the British. Major-General George Bell was calm
and suave, but a stalwart disciplinarian. Before leaving the States he
had eliminated many officers who for temperament, physical disability,
or other reasons appeared less serviceable abroad than at home. This
enabled him to travel to France without excess baggage, and to arrive
there with his organization knit together by a harmonious and spirited
personnel. As for his men, they were from Illinois and of the Illinois
National Guard, as you may learn in Cairo, Springfield, or Chicago,
for Illinois had been one of the forward states in supporting its
Guardsmen.
The 33rd was to swing up along the Meuse by noon of the first day, and
to rest there as a pivot for the Third Corps,--a delicate operation.
Its position was as picturesque as its record was various, in its
service first with the British under the Australian Corps, then with a
French, and later with an American Corps. If the war had lasted long
enough the Illinois men might have been sent to serve on the Italian
front, to complete their itinerary of military cosmopolitanism. At its
back now was the Mort Homme, or Dead Man's Hill, whose mention in the
communiqués during the Verdun fighting was frequent in the days when
the world hung on the news of a few hundred yards gained or lost on the
right or left bank of the Meuse. There under countering barrages from
the quick-firers and the plowing by high explosive shells, Frenchman
and German had groveled in the torn earth, mixed with blood and flesh,
between the throes of hectic charges for advantage. The Germans won the
hill, but eventually the French regained it. Then silence fell on the
shambles where the unrecognizable dead rested, and above them rose not
the red poppies of the poet's pictures, but weed and ragged grass from
the edges of the shell-craters.
Such was the texture of the rising undulating carpet unrolled to the
northeast over the battlefield of Verdun. In the foreground it was
variegated by the ruins of villages and those exclamation points of
desolation, the limbless trees, which melted into its greenish-ashen
sweep over the fort-crowned hills in the distance. Beyond them was
the plain of the Woëvre; and beyond that was Germany. An occasional
shell-burst showed that the volcano of war still simmered; its report
was an echo of the crashing thunders of the past, which we were to
awaken again in the valley of the Meuse.
The Meuse seemed only a larger Aire, asking its way sinuously in this
broken country. As vision followed its course past the German trench
system in front of the Mort Homme and past the area of destruction, it
was arrested by the bald ridge of the Borne de Cornouiller, or Hill
378. Mark the name! It will have a sinister part in our battle. Ten of
our divisions were to know its wrath without knowing its name. Higher
than any of the Verdun forts, except Douaumont, and higher than the
heights of the whale-back, it had been in the possession of the Germans
since August, 1914. From its summit observers could give the targets
to the countless guns hidden in the woods and ravines of its reverse
slopes.
An offensive against frontal positions resembles the swinging open of
double doors, with their hinges at the points where the first-line
fortifications are broken. The farther the doors are swung, the
greater the danger of enemy pressure on the hinges, whose protection
is the tactician's nightmare. In broadening his front of offensive
operations by alternating attacks Marshal Foch may be said to have been
opening several doors which were to become the alternately advancing
panels of a screen.
The Fourth French Army was the left flank of our army in the
Meuse-Argonne. As its left, and therefore the left of the whole
Franco-American attack, was making only a slight advance at the start,
it was little exposed. Our Third Corps had the right flank of the whole
movement, the Meuse River being the hinge, with the swing toward the
west bank of the Meuse, which bends westward toward the heights of
the whale-back on the Corps front. This gave it a frontal command of
the west bank, while it put the German trench system on the east bank
in the right rear of our line of general movement. Though the Meuse
was an unfordable stream, and we held the bridgeheads to prevent any
infantry counter-attack, this could not prevent cross-fire upon us
from artillery and even from machine-guns. As from the Mort Homme one
had a visual comprehension of the mission of the Third Corps, which
was more informing, not to say more thrilling, than the study of maps
at Headquarters, the inevitable question came to mind as to what was
being done for our protection on the east bank. The answer was that
French artillery and infantry were to undertake "exploitation." This
was a familiar word, which could not intimidate the artillery on the
Borne de Cornouiller. Forces in exploitation on the flanks, however
encouraging in battle plans, form an elastic term in application,
dependent upon what sacrifices they will make in the thankless task of
diverting the enemy's fire to themselves. With the heights of the Meuse
commanding one flank and the heights of the whale-back commanding the
other, the Third Corps was to operate in the Meuse trough as in the
pit of an amphitheater, striving to fight its way up the seats under a
plunging fire from the gallery.
Still, there was nothing else to be done. Someone had to take
punishment on the flanks for the support of the drive on the center.
The grueling which the Third Corps was to endure in advancing on one
side of the trough of a river valley beyond the enemy line on the other
was as certain to entail severe losses as was the mission of the First
Corps against the Argonne Forest and down the valley of the Aire. The
duty of all concerned, in an offensive which was organized in haste
in the hope of winning a great prize by springing into the breach of
opportunity, was not to hesitate in consideration of handicaps, but to
minimize them as much as possible in the initial plan, and then to
strike in fullness of confidence and of all the power at our command.
The strategy of the battle was daring in conception, and resolute in
execution.