Two weeks of reconnaissance by the 33rd on the right--Surprising
the enemy by charging through a swamp--Careful planning gives
complete success by noon--Nothing more but build a road and
wait--Two belts of woods in front of the 80th--The enemy must
hold at the second belt--Which he does with enfilade artillery,
gas, and a counter-attack from Brieulles--More artillery support
necessary before the defenses of the town, beyond the belts, could
be taken--The 4th does its first bit in workmanlike fashion--But
cannot get beyond the foot of the whale-back without its stalled
artillery--The Corps digs in as it can and waits.
By the right flank, left flank, and center! Every action, whether
fought by a thousand or a million men, resolves itself into these
simple elements of strategic control, which is as old as war. In our
Meuse-Argonne drive the right and left flanks elbowed their way down
the two river valleys to the conquest of the approaches on either side
of the heights of the whale-back, which the center was attacking in
front. To think in these terms is to think in Corps; and to think in
Corps is to think in divisions.
On the right of Bullard's Third Corps in the trough of the Meuse was
the 33rd Division, Illinois National Guard. It was the first American
division to arrive on the Meuse-Argonne line, taking September 7th-9th
from a French division the sector which our whole Third Corps was later
to occupy. A single American division assigned to such a broad front
of quiet trenches would not arouse the enemy's suspicions that we were
planning a major offensive. On the contrary, it might be an excellent
mask for our battle preparations.
Thus the 33rd had two weeks of actual trench occupation in which to
familiarize itself with the enemy positions. These resourceful Illinois
men, who had seen much and learned much in having already served with
a British, an Australian, a French, and an American Corps, were just
the kind to make the most of their advantage, being naturally of an
inquiring mind and not timid, though shrewd, in their methods of
inquiry. Before the attack, in making room for the other two divisions
of the Corps in their stealthy approach, they were side-slipped to the
right, where they faced the river bottoms of the Meuse. At their back
was the scarred slope of the Mort Homme, and in their sight were the
other famous hills of the Verdun battle.
The mission of the 33rd was as picturesque and appealing as its
surroundings. As the hinge of the whole movement, on the pivot of the
river bank, it was to swing round in a half circle until its front was
secured on the Meuse, at a right angle to the German front line on
the opposite bank. This was to be accomplished by noon, after which
the 33rd had only to dig in and hold fast. My reference elsewhere to
the difficulty of maneuvering troops even in face of no opposition
particularly applies to this sweeping right wheel. There was the Forges
brook, as well as the trench systems to cross. On the right of the line
was the Forges Wood, and on the left was the Juré Wood, which gave
cover for machine-guns, if they were not overcome, to play a flanking
fire on the center. Forges Wood was the real problem. Its machine-gun
nests were protected by formidable defenses where the Germans thought
them necessary. At other points they depended upon morasses which they
thought impassable; and they knew the river bottoms thoroughly as their
avenue of advance in their repeated attacks for the mastery of the
Mort Homme in the Verdun battle. However, the inquiring Illinois men
made their own investigations most thoroughly, if covertly, without
accepting the reputation of German thoroughness as a guarantee that
there were no openings.
As a result they not only disagreed with the German view, but took
counsel of their conviction in strategy which was to lull the enemy in
his own conviction of his security and of their amateurishness. They
had time to work out the plan by thorough instruction in every detail.
In the first stage of the advance they had to descend a steep slope
and cross the Forges brook. There they were to halt on a road on the
other side of No Man's Land, to form up for the final act any units
that had been delayed or become mixed. Being an accurate, card-index
kind of division, the 33rd's records show that the road was reached in
fifty-seven minutes, and that at the end of twenty minutes every man
was in his place according to schedule.
With the left regiment swinging past the Forges Wood, this might have
exposed its flank, if the action of the right had not been properly
timed; for everything depended upon each unit carrying out its part
in the team-work punctually. Charging up to their hips in slime and
up to their necks in water, the Illinois men proved that the swamps
were not impassable. They took duckboards from the trenches and threw
them over the stretches of barbed wire which protected the Wood where
the swamps did not. Just as the defenders of the Wood were turning
their machine-guns on the targets on their flanks, the right regiment
"jumped" them in front. This gave them an opportunity for to-the-death
resistance by firing in two directions; but they were too confused in
the shattering of all their preconceptions to make use of it in face
of those mud-plastered Americans springing bolt into their midst. They
yielded readily. The swinging left had put the Juré Wood behind it,
and, with only broken elements of the enemy now in its path, the 33rd
had its whole line on the bank at noon. The right hinge of the Army
secure, the maneuver had been so beautifully made and it was such a
complete success that it attracted less attention than if the division
had been obliged to endure the very hard fighting which skill and
foresight had prevented.
As the booty of its swift combing advance, the 33rd had taken 1,450
German prisoners, who wondered just what had happened to them and why,
and seven 6-inch howitzers, two 110-millimeter guns, twenty pieces
of field artillery, not to mention some trench mortars, fifty-seven
machine-guns, a light railway, and a well-stocked engineer depot. The
33rd's own loss was 2 officers and 34 men killed, and 2 officers and
205 men wounded, and not a single man missing. To put it in another
way, this division with its fondness for figures as the real test of
military prowess, had captured nearly six Germans for every casualty of
its own. This was certainly waging thrifty and profitable war.
In the matter of traffic, too, the 33rd with characteristic
self-reliance proceeded to look after itself. General Bell, who had
a pungent common sense, knew his men when he set them to paddling
their own canoe. When congestion on the Béthincourt road, assigned
to both the 33rd and the 80th Divisions, prompted the thought of
making a road of his own, he did not take up the question with Corps,
which, as this was not in the original plan, might ask the views of
Army on the suggestion. A young engineer might be sent out to make
an investigation. He might consider the danger of drawing fire, and
other factors. Then he might return to Corps for further consultation.
After this another young engineer might be sent out to superintend the
construction. Before Corps knew anything about it, and in the time that
procrastinating counsel might have occupied, the Illinois men, who did
not need anyone to show them how to build a road while they had spades
and elbow-grease, had one completed right over the Mort Homme.
With its transport moving in good order and with its objectives taken,
the 33rd might say, in the language which it had learned in training
at the British front, "We've finished our job, and we're feeling quite
comfortable, thank you." Except to put in a brigade to relieve the 80th
and join up with the 4th Division--which was no small exception to the
brigade--the 33rd had nothing further to do until, on the strength of
the way it had carried out its mission of the 26th, it was ordered to
cross the Meuse on October 8th in order to stop some of the flanking
fire from the other bank--which belongs to another chapter.
Cronkhite's 80th, or "Blue Ridge" National Army Division, which was
the center division of the Third Corps, was also to swing toward the
Meuse, and had farther to go, though the Meuse bends inward toward its
line of advance. According to the Army plan, the 80th was to have only
one day's intensive fighting and swift advancing. On the night of the
26th the narrowing front of attack was to "squeeze" it out. Immediately
ahead of them the Blue Ridge men had two miles of open hilly country,
which facilitated maintaining their formations. Beyond this was a
series of woods forming practically a belt, which offered cover at
every point for machine-gun nests. Better still for the enemy's purpose
in holding up a persistent attack--of the kind the Blue Ridge men were
under orders to make and would make--beyond this, separated by another
open space, was another belt of woods. When hard pressed in the first
belt, the enemy could withdraw to the second, where his machine-guns
would have another free field of fire.
The Blue Ridge men were not abashed by hills and woods. They had been
brought up among hills and woods. After breaking through the trench
system in a clean sweep, by noon they were in the first belt of woods,
though they had flanking fire from the Juré Wood on their right. They
were up to schedule no less than the 33rd; but they had had only
an introduction to what was in store for them. With the left of the
intrenched 33rd as their pivot, they must take the second belt of
woods between them and the river. On the river bank was the town of
Brieulles, where they were supposed to rest their left when the task
was finished. Brieulles did not appear to be far away on the map; but
we were to be a long time in taking it.
Fortunately the engineers--who deserve much credit for this--had a
bridge over the Forges brook by nine in the morning for the artillery.
This was good news to men looking across the open into the recesses
of that second belt of woods, which appeared as peaceful from that
distance as a patch in the Shenandoah valley. In a race against
time--with the schedule burned into every officer's brain--the 80th
could not wait for all the guns to come up. In the attack at three
in the afternoon the front line of the division moved forward with
drill-ground precision and the confidence of its morning's success.
Since the 80th's movement had stopped at noon, the enemy had had three
hours in which to prepare his reception of the charge. In a sense the
success of the 33rd was a handicap to the 80th that afternoon. It
aroused the enemy to the gravity of his situation along the Meuse.
His remnants of units retreating before the 33rd were swinging round
in front of the 80th; reserves had been hurried across the river and
from Brieulles. By this time our plan was revealed to him along our
whole front. The loss of more river bank had an important tactical
relation to his defense of Montfaucon and the covering positions of the
whale-back, toward which our Fifth Corps in the center was advancing
rapidly. If he could hold his ground from the river bank to Cuisy,
he might have our center in a salient. His determination to hold it
blazed out from that soft carpet of green in cruel machine-gun fire,
raking the open spaces. His artillery on the opposite bank of the
Meuse, as well as on the near bank behind the second belt of woods and
around Brieulles, opened fire immediately our charge developed under
its observation. Undaunted, the Blue Ridge men pressed on across the
open toward the machine-gun nests in the edge of the second belt, as
toward a refuge in a storm. They took these, only to find that more
machine-guns were echelonned in the recesses of the woods. Gas as
well as high-explosive shells were falling in the first belt and at
points where our reserves were concentrated. In openings or narrow
stretches of the second belt where units were able to drive through,
they looked out on more open spaces under command of machine-guns from
ridges and thickets, while right and left any unit whose courage or
opportunity had carried it too far was caught in enfilade by the fire
of machine-guns which had not been mopped up.
That night the 80th had its right up with the 33rd's intrenched left
on the river. Its brave accomplishment on the remainder of its front
was best measured by the powerful resistance it had met. The division,
which was to have been squeezed out by the narrowing front, had to
remain in line because the front had not been narrowed, after far
harder fighting than it had anticipated. Transport congestion on the
road which the 33rd as well as the 80th was still using was extreme.
If the Blue Ridge men could not bring their supplies up by wheel
they might by hand. Carrying parties brought up food and small arms
ammunition by fording the brook past the stalled trucks.
There could be no question about the character of the next day's
fighting. The enemy was serving notice of it throughout the night.
The 80th's line needed re-forming. Its commander did not mean to send
his sturdy, willing, lithe men to slaughter in the fulness of their
youthful energy and ambition. They must have artillery protection.
Their divisional artillery, operating with the division for the first
time, required daylight for going into position and mastering its
problems of fire in a task which was both beyond its strength and
complicated, as was all the other detail of preparing for the attack,
by the terrific enemy artillery fire spread from the roads in the rear
to the front line.
The shells from the German field-pieces were "small potatoes" compared
to the "big fellows" that were arriving in increasing numbers. As the
men listened to the scream of the large calibers and studied their
bursts, they learned that these were coming not only from the front but
from both sides. Enfilade machine-gun fire is bad enough, but enfilade
artillery fire is still harder to bear. You may at least charge the
machine-guns, but you cannot charge the distant unseen powers hurling
high-explosive shells into your flank.
The Borne de Cornouiller, or Hill 378, which I took pains to describe
in a previous chapter, was now having its first of many innings at the
expense of the Third Corps at its feet in the trough of the Meuse. This
bald height on the other side of the river looked across the river
bottoms and the rising valley walls to the heights of the whale-back.
If the observers on the Borne de Cornouiller saw a target which their
guns could not reach, they signaled its location to the whale-back,
which might have it in range; and the observers of the whale-back
were responsively courteous. This accounted for the cross artillery
fire which for weeks was to knife our men of the Third Corps with the
wickedness of assassin's thrusts in the ribs.
From Hill 378 the 80th Division's movement of troops, guns, and
transport in the open was almost as visible through powerful glasses
as people in the streets below from a church steeple. As the 33rd was
already dug in and could advance no farther except by crossing the
river, the 80th was convinced that it was receiving as a surplus the
allotment from over the Meuse which otherwise might have been sent
against the Illinois men. A measure of the increase of artillery fire
is given in the Third Corps report, which estimates that the enemy
sent 65,000 shells into its area on the 27th, compared to 5,000 on the
26th. Against this long-range fire the 80th's divisional artillery was
as helpless as against falling meteors. The Blue Ridge men must endure
the deluge with philosophic fatalism. Their own gunners could only give
them barrages, and concentrate on machine-gun nests and such field
battery positions as were located.
The deadly accuracy of the enemy's artillery fire, its wide
distribution, blasting holes in the roads, loosing on infantry as it
deployed, on convoys of artillery ammunition, and raking our front-line
positions, only made it more important that the next attack should be
well delivered and in force. So it was. At one in the afternoon, under
the barrage of their artillery, trench mortars, and machine-guns which
they had forced through to the front, the Blue Ridge men, with a dash
worthy of the traditions of their fathers in the Civil War, gained
their objectives, except on the left, where the 4th Division was having
troubles of its own of a kind which the 80th could fully appreciate.
Though in the second belt of woods, the 80th was not yet to be squeezed
out. There was Brieulles to be taken yet, and the German reinforcements
which were rapidly arriving required more attention than the other
divisions of the Corps could spare from their own fronts. The German
command decided that it was time that these Americans had a taste of
offensive tactics themselves. Fresh German troops, advancing from
Brieulles on the third morning, delivered a sharp counter-attack; but
the Blue Ridge men had no patience with any attempt to drive them back
from the ground they had won. They were of the "sticking" kind, as
their forefathers had been. It was a joyous business, repulsing that
counter-attack to the accompaniment of such yells as Union soldiers
associated with Confederate ferocity. It was enlightening, too, in that
it showed both them and their adversaries what a difference there is
between charging machine-guns and using them to stop a charge.
This incident of the German counter-attack--and the Blue Ridge men made
it an incident--was a fillip for the defenders as they sprang up for
their own attack, which began at 7.15, soon after the Germans were in
flight. The object was to advance the left flank, which had been held
up the preceding day, into Brieulles. The 80th's artillery concentrated
on hills 227 and 281, which commanded the town, and the town itself,
which is at a sharp bend of the river. It happened that the Germans
were even more interested in holding Brieulles than on the preceding
day. The low ground around it held a semi-circle of machine-gun
positions. While the long-range artillery fire from flanking heights
was heavier than before on the 80th's area, German field-guns on the
other side of the river from Brieulles had the special mission of
protecting the town.
From the start the fighting was furious and at close quarters. The 80th
made some headway in the morning, re-formed, and renewed its effort
in the afternoon. Again and again parties attempted to rush the crest
of 281, which not only commanded the town but was linked up with the
town and the river bend in the tactical defense of the whale-back,
which, after the taking of Montfaucon, the Fifth Corps was approaching
in front. The ground before Brieulles was impassable. The valor of
tired men had done all it could under sniping of machine-guns and all
calibers of artillery. Before we could take Brieulles, we must have
more guns and develop a better method of approach. In holding it the
Germans might find some compensation for the loss of an engineer dump,
estimated to be worth millions, which the 80th had taken.
Sent in for one day's fighting, the division had fought for three
days. Now it was withdrawn according to the original plan; but this
did not mean that it was to go into rest. It was dog-weary, though not
exhausted. When a brigade from the 33rd, which had been busy fortifying
the river bank and sending patrols across the river, and generally
keeping its irrepressible hand in, took over the 80th's front, the
80th's artillery was kept in the sector, one infantry regiment remained
with the 4th in action, and the other three regiments were marched
away as reserves for the 37th Division, which, after throwing in all
its strength in conquering the deep Montfaucon Wood, was expecting a
counter-attack by the enemy to recover a position which was vital in
that area to his defense of the whale-back. As we had kept him too
busy with our attacks for the counter-attack to materialize, the three
regiments of the 80th had only the experience of that marching and
counter-marching by which alarms and changing dispositions wear out
shoe-leather and patience in the course of a mighty battle. The Blue
Ridge men had advanced six miles, taking 850 prisoners and 16 guns,
with a loss of 1,064 men in killed and wounded, as the introductory
part of the service which they were to perform in the Meuse-Argonne.
As the one regular division in line, the tried 4th, on the left of the
Third Corps, would hardly be given the short end of the stick. There
was no road in its sector. Once its transport was across the trench
system, it had to switch back from the sector of the neighboring 79th
Division to its own. This was a handicap characteristic of the stern
problem of the 4th, which, if it failed, would set a bad example for
inexperienced divisions.
Being forewarned of what was expected of his regulars, General Hines
was forearmed in his prevision. Recognizing the miserable character of
the Esnes-Malancourt road which the division was to use, the engineers
of the 4th began work on its improvement early in the evening of the
25th before the battle began. In common with the two other divisions
of the Corps, the 4th had to cross the Forges brook. Its left flank,
in _liaison_ with the 79th, faced the height of Cuisy, which was
a flanking approach to the Montfaucon heights, and its right the
practically continuous system of woods which joined up with those in
front of the 80th. Thus it was a link between the swinging movement to
the Meuse and the main drive, the mission of its left being to help
force the evacuation of Montfaucon, and of its right to occupy the
bank of the Meuse from Brieulles north to Sassey.
The whole command was keyed up to great things when with a yell the
men went over the top in the thick mist on the morning of the 26th. If
not regular in the old sense, they took pride in being professional
in skill, though most of the young officers, as in other regular
divisions, were from the training camps. They did not belong to any
part of the country. They were not National Guard or National Army,
but just fighting soldiers who belonged to all America. Discipline was
strict in this division. Its spirit of corps was in the conviction of
its rigid efficiency. With hardly a waver in its methodical progress
it had reached the Corps objective by 12.30. There it dug in, waiting
until 5.30 for the division on its left, which was the keystone of the
movement, to come up. Then the men rose again and went forward without
any artillery support, only to meet what the divisions right and left
were meeting in the rapidly stiffening German machine-gun defense, and
to call for shields against murderous odds.
In their road-making across the brook and the trench systems the
engineers had used 40,000 sand-bags. Early in the afternoon they had
a passageway which permitted of the slow passage of transport between
intervals of filling in the ruts cut by the heavy trucks; but two
divisions, in the section of the line where the farthest advance was
expected, were limited to road facilities inadequate for one. It can
only be said that if it had not been for the diligence of the engineers
the situation would have been even worse.
The failure of the center to reach Montfaucon on the 26th had an
intimate concern with the plans of the 4th the next day, when the
positive orders for its capture required that the 4th should attack
without its artillery, which was still laboring to get forward. From
7.30 until darkness, without their shields against the increasing
artillery and machine-gun fire, the men continued their workmanlike
advance. Didn't they belong to the 4th, which was as good as the 1st,
2nd, or 3rd, Regulars? When night came they had behind them the heights
around Montfaucon. They had gone through Brieulles Wood. They were also
in the south edge of the Fays Wood, but when they tried to dig in there
the machine-gun and shell-fire was too deadly to be endured. They had
to fall back to the slope of 295.
Still their artillery was not up; still the order was to attack; and
they attacked the next morning. The Germans attacked also; and were
held. We were now against the strong covering positions on the slopes
of the summit of the whale-back, where the Germans were organizing
their Kriemhilde main line of defense. During the remaining days of
September, the 4th cleaned up the Brieulles Wood, made itself secure
in its defenses, and kept harassing the enemy with patrols. On the
night of the 28th its artillery had arrived, though traffic congestion
limited its ammunition supply, which it needed in great quantities to
counter the enemy's artillery fire as well as his machine-gun nests. It
was in range of many of the guns from the east bank of the Meuse which
were so mercilessly harassing the 80th, and of course was receiving an
immense volume of shells from all the heights of the whale-back. The
division was short of supplies and it was tired, but there could be
no thought of taking it out. It was to remain in line in a tug-of-war
with the enemy until it took part in the general attack of October 4th,
being all the while under that raking cross artillery fire that made
the Corps sector a hell night and day.
Contemptuous in their security, the observers from Hill 378, the Borne
de Cornouiller, continued to exchange notes with the observers on the
heights of the whale-back, as they looked down on the amphitheater,
peering for targets into the wrinkles of the uneven landscape and
soaking the woods which we occupied with gas. Our only hope of
protection was to find ravines deep enough or with walls steep enough
to enable us to dig pits which could not be reached by the plunging
fire from three directions. These German gunners knew the roads which
we must take at night in order to move our supplies to the front; the
villages where our transport might halt; and the location or probable
location of our batteries, while theirs were hidden. If we wheeled to
attack to the right or left, we received shells in the back as well as
in front. The first day of the battle, when the Corps had fired 80,000
shells against the Germans' 5,000, became the mockery of a halcyon past
in face of the concentrations which now pounded the Corps from sources
to which we could not respond with anything like equivalent power.
If the men of the Corps who had to endure this plunging fire had heard
the name of the Borne de Cornouiller, they would probably have called
it "Corned Willy," the sobriquet which naturally came to the lips of
our soldiers, who eventually conquered it on rations of cold corned
beef. But they knew only that shells were coming from three quarters
of the compass, while they asked "why in ----" our artillery did not
silence the German artillery. The answer was that our artillery could
not, until the Borne de Cornouiller and the whale-back were taken,
which was not to be for another month. The Third Corps was to keep on
trying for that town of Brieulles, while it kept on fighting in that
wicked river trough, to support the attacks in the center. There was no
use of growling. The thing had to be borne.