The Marne Division--A wedge in the east over open
ridges--Magnificent, but not war--A footing in the Mamelle
trench--Blue Ridge men hammering a way into the Ogons Wood--And into
the Mamelle trench--A still hunt in a German headquarters--The dead
line of the Brieulles road.
Our First Corps was still on the left, with the trough of the Aire
now behind it. Our Fifth Corps, including the 1st Division after its
transfer from the First, was still in the center, and our Third Corps
in the yet unconquered trough of the Meuse on the right. Departing from
the arbitrary lines of the Corps, in following the movement for the
conquest of the Forest and of the trough and the walls of the Aire to
its conclusion, no mention was made of the other divisions from the
flank of the 32nd to the Meuse. All had been attacking with the same
vigor as those to the left.
On October 1st the 3rd Division, under Major-General Beaumont B. Buck,
had relieved the 79th, going in beside the 32nd. Its part is given
separately from that of the 32nd, which was in the same, or Fifth
Corps, because it was also to drive a wedge in the general attack
of October 4th. Be it the 1st or 2nd, or the 4th or 5th, the 3rd
considered itself the peer of any regular division. It had become
veteran without any trench service when it hurried to Château-Thierry
to its baptism of fire, in the crisis of the third German offensive of
the spring. I have described in my first book how, flanks exposed, it
"stonewalled" on the Marne's bank against the fifth German offensive;
and how, then swiftly crossing the Marne, it had joined our other
divisions in the advance to the Vesle. Though its emblem was three
white stripes on a blue field, indicating its three battles, it was
sometimes called the Marne Division. The reputation for unflinching
endurance and bold initiative which it had won was now to be further
enhanced in an action whose toll of casualties was second--and then by
only one hundred--to that of the 1st, which drove the wedge along the
Aire.
Having come from Saint-Mihiel, its replacements absorbed in its ways,
its units all fresh and trained in coöperation, it marched along the
road through Montfaucon which was ever under shell-fire, and down the
slopes in face of the guns of the whale-back, following the path where
the 79th had "expended" itself, with the spring of youth in its steps
and confidence in the heart-beat of every man. Such was its pride and
spirit that one would say that anything that this division could not do
no other division could do. Judging by the sector and the mission to
which it was assigned, this was also the view of the Army command.
The line which it took over from Nantillois to the Beuge Wood was
exposed to continual harassing fire. Before it were three bare
irregular ridges, surmounted by commanding hills, with woods on the
right flank. On the last of the three was the Mamelle trench, a part
of the Kriemhilde Stellung. Army ambition, fondly contemplating the
freshness and efficiency of the 3rd, saw it driving over those bare
ridges, all the while under the guns of the whale-back, past flanking
machine-gun fire from the wooded Hill 250 and Cunel Wood on the right.
Piercing the Mamelle trench, it was to sink its wedge into the right
flank of the whale-back, while the wedge of the 1st was sunk into the
left flank. It was the precept of the Army that if you did not order a
thing it would not be delivered. One never could tell. The 3rd might
do a miracle. It had done something like a miracle on the banks of the
Marne. The better a division was, the more was expected of it: which is
only logical and human.
The open ground on the front was excellently suited for tanks. Forty
or fifty would have approached a theoretically adequate number for the
division's part in the general attack on October 4th. Unfortunately
our troops had had little training in maneuvers with tanks, and the
few which the French were able to spare for the 3rd were of relatively
little service. For its artillery support, the 3rd had, beside its own
brigade, that of the 32nd. This appeared quite generous on paper--but
not in sight of those ridges. Their crests should have been ruptured by
the high-explosive bursts of half a dozen regiments of heavy artillery,
and received a shower-bath of shrapnel from half a dozen regiments of
field artillery. However, there was the infantry--we could depend upon
the "doughboys" even if we were short of artillery.
As a substitute for natural cover, a smoke-screen was helpful in
obscuring the aim of the enemy's machine-gunners as the charge ascended
the exposed slope of the first ridge. This was taken in the morning
under the cross-fire from Hill 250, which had resisted the attack on
the right, while the enemy artillery fire from the whale-back searched
the whole field of the advance. The dependable infantry, closing up the
gaps in ranks torn by shell-fire, swaying, re-forming, and rushing on,
had accomplished this much; but there were the machine-guns from 250
sweeping the flank of the line on the ridge. The artillery was asked to
pound 250; it did its best to answer this while it was answering other
pressing calls. An effort to encircle 250 while it was being shelled
was blasted back. No matter about 250; there was yet the second ridge
to be taken; and the afternoon was young. Before nightfall the men
of the 3rd had reached its reverse slope, and were digging in under
shell-fire, while they received machine-gun fire not only from 250 but
from Cunel Wood, which was now in flank of their advance. The Cunel was
a small wood, but it was large enough for a host of machine-guns, and
could not have been better placed for the German purpose.
The next morning, October 5th, under artillery support, the men of
the 3rd tried infiltration over the crest of the second ridge by
all the tactics known to veterans. Apart from ample machine-guns
and infantry in the trenches, the Germans had two field guns on the
ridge, firing at point-blank range in directions where they would be
of most service. Infiltration would not do. There must be artillery
preparation, then a sweep over the crest behind the shield of a strong
barrage. During the organization of this attack, there was no lull in
the bitter and stubborn fighting. If lines became disarranged, there
was no demoralization. The Marne division was second to no division.
It meant to go through. The Cunel Wood must be cleaned up as a part
of the program of taking the second ridge. A line of men, crouching,
methodical, bayonets glistening, started across the open against the
wood, and melted away in face of the spitting of the machine-guns.
Unflinchingly another line advanced, and still another, and they
too melted away under that blaze from the wood's edge. Artillery
preparation for the assault of the second ridge at 5 P.M. had included
the Mamelle trench on the third ridge, where the Germans were known
to be in strong force. The crest of the second ridge was gained. One
company, targets against the slope for shells and machine-gun bullets,
kept on until it reached the little Moussin brook in the valley. The
German machine-gunners had this perfectly registered under an aim that
swept the reverse slope. If the company had continued advancing, any
survivor who reached the Mamelle trench would have been taken prisoner.
That night the machine-guns on 250 were mopped up, which removed one
source of assassination in flank. The 3rd was not keeping up with the
lines drawn for it on the map, but it was making gains and holding them.
Fatigue and the drain from casualties were beginning to tell. It was
evident from the number of Germans and machine-guns in the Mamelle
trench that the enemy meant to fight desperately for its retention.
There was no storming it without thorough artillery preparation
until something was done to take care of Cunel Wood on the flank. In
conjunction with the 80th on its right, the 3rd again charged Cunel's
machine-gun nests. They made an entrance, only to find that the
depths of the wood were plotted with machine-gun nests which began
firing when the edge was taken. After the repulse of the main attack,
a sergeant and twenty men of the 3rd stuck to their fox-holes. The
following day they were able to withdraw in small groups. Meanwhile
defensive positions were being organized on the second ridge. It was
not a solacing fact to have the 32nd Division's artillery withdrawn at
this juncture. In its place came a smaller force of French, who were
welcome, but would have been more welcome if they had had more guns;
but the British, the French, the Americans, and the Belgians, too, were
using every available gun in the general offensive movement.
On the 7th and 8th the 3rd remained dug in, preparing for the general
attack of the 9th which on the Army's left was to free the Aire
valley. That day the objective was to take the Mamelle trench and
pass on through to the Pultière Wood. Meanwhile on the 8th there had
been remorselessly close quarters work in attacks and counter-attacks
in trying to take Hill 253 on the left, with the result that the end
of the day left the two lines about seventy-five yards apart on the
slope. Starting from the valley of the Moussin brook on the 9th, we
swept into the Mamelle, overran it in places, lost parts of it, held
other parts as the contest swayed back and forth. On the 10th it was
hammer-and-tongs again, as we made further gains supported by barrages,
only to find as the barrage lifted that the guns from the whale-back
were bursting shells on our heads,--and units were again in salients
of interlocking machine-gun fire. The advantage gained was not in
distance, but in cleaning up some of the machine-gun nests, which
allowed us to hold on to more of the Mamelle. The 11th was a repetition
of the same ferocity of initiative and resistance in the same kind of
wrestle. It had been a test of endurance in sleepless effort between
the men of the 3rd and the Germans, and the grit of the 3rd had won.
All this time the 80th on the left, which was swinging past the trench,
was suffering from flanking fire from the machine-guns which the 3rd
was trying to overcome. On the night of the 12th, the 3rd relieved
units of the 80th, extending its sector. This frequent realignment in
divisional sectors only made more difficult the repeated re-forming
of the lines within the sector due to set-backs and casualties. The
next day the elements of the 3rd which had taken over in the Peut de
Faux Wood found themselves, after a terrific outburst of shell-fire,
facing a strong German counter-attack. They had resisted German attacks
before this on the Marne. At one point they withdrew from the line of
the barrage; but when the barrage lifted, and they looked the enemy
infantry in the eye at close quarters, they never budged.
There may have been faults in the command of the 3rd in this baffling
problem of tactics on open slopes and ridges where communications were
under the fire of artillery from both the whale-back and the heights
across the Meuse, but there was no fault in the dependable infantry.
Here, as along the rest of the front in the middle of October, we were
learning that the enemy, having lost advantageous ground in the defense
of the whale-back, was to hold the final heights with all the more
stubbornness. In the successes from October 4th to 11th the 3rd had won
one of the most conspicuous. After two weeks in line its endurance was
not exhausted. It was now to begin preparing for the general attack of
October 14th, which is another phase of the battle.
Support on its right flank, which had been essential to its progress,
had been given by the peripatetic Blue Ridge men. The veterans of
Stonewall Jackson's flying columns would have felt at home in the 80th
Division. We know how well it had fought for three days in the initial
attack that broke the old fortifications. On September 28th, when the
80th had been "squeezed out" of the narrowing Third Corps sector, its
artillery and one infantry regiment had also remained in the fighting
with the 4th Division, while the three other regiments had been
marched around to be in readiness to assist the 37th in repelling a
counter-attack against the Montfaucon woods. Now the Blue Ridge men
were returned to become the left flank of the Third Corps on familiar
ground. For such rapid travelers Army ambition had set a no less rapid
pace on the map than for the 3rd. They were to keep on driving until
they were through the Kriemhilde Stellung between Cunel and the Meuse.
It was not fair to call them a fresh division, unless hard fighting and
hard marching were counted a warming-up exercise, and going without
sleep a tonic.
The first of the many hurdles in the steeple-chase planned for them
was the Ogons Wood, whose machine-guns had shattered the attacks of
the 79th on September 29th; but this was ancient history in a battle
whose processes were so swift. It happened six days ago. We were in a
new era; we were making another general attack as powerful as that of
September 26th. The clock had run down on September 29th; it was wound
up again by the 4th. The 80th had only to repeat its own successes in
the first three days of the battle, and it was in Cunel. The staff must
always talk in this encouraging fashion; but there was no reason to
believe that there were fewer machine-guns in the Ogons Wood than when
the 79th had been repulsed. Possibly their number had been increased
during the stalemate period from September 29th to October 4th. There
was one way of finding out--by sending a wave of human targets over
those open slopes toward the wood's edge.
The machine-guns began firing with the mechanical regularity of a
knitting machine, instantly the attack began. The Blue Ridge men were
not surprised at this, or at receiving high-explosive shells from two
directions. If they had not known from their own previous experience,
the men of the long-suffering 4th Division on their right could have
told them that once they were in the woods the German gunners would be
slipping gas shells into their gun tubes in place of the H. E.'s used
against them in the open. It was the quantity of shells and bullets
that was unexpected. The enemy shell-bursts were keeping pace with them
as automatically as their own barrages, and beyond their own barrage
the enemy was laying down a stationary barrage awaiting their advance.
Machine-gun fire increased with every step.
There was no continuing against such a shower of projectiles and
hissing of bullets. A halt was called. A battalion of reserves was
brought up while the artillery was told where to concentrate its fire;
separated units were brought together, re-formed on a new line; tanks
came up on the left to assist in the second charge at 5.30 P.M.; but
the enemy had only held his fire, waiting for the second charge to
start. It came nearer the Ogons, but when darkness fell the Blue Ridge
men were still lying in the open, south of the wood, the enemy's guns
still keeping up an intermittent galling fire, which was falling alike
on the dead and the wounded and the survivors. Patrols filtered into
the woods during the night--and the Blue Ridge men had a gift for such
work--only to learn that a few enterprising scouts, in their stealthy
crawling, if they wished to escape massacre or being taken prisoner,
had to avoid drawing fire.
Attack again! Keep on trying! The next morning all the machine-guns
were ordered up to send a barrage of bullets over the heads of the
charge into the edge of the woods. This had been efficacious on other
occasions, but it was not this time, as the infantry knew instantly
they rose to advance, when the deadly refrain from the edge of the
woods showed no more diminution than the wrath of the guns from
the heights. Ground was gained in places between the swaths of the
machine-guns' mowing; but no part of the line penetrated the woods,
though it was close to the woods when it was stopped. Attack again!
Keep on trying! The enemy will break if you try hard enough! The
wedge must be driven, whether through woods, over slopes, or through
trenches. Again reorganization; again the line re-formed to make the
most of gains; again the artillery ordered to concentrate on the woods
for an attack at 6 P.M. This time the jumping-off place was so near the
woods, that the Germans, when the barrage descended upon them, were as
a rule disinclined to wait for the charge. Many who remained held up
their hands. The men felt relief at being at last no longer a target in
the open as they made swift work of mopping up the whole of the Ogons.
The next day, the 6th, the divisional artillery assisted the 3rd in its
efforts for the Mamelle trench. Patrols trying to reach the trenches
north of the Ogons--which incidentally was being gassed--ran into an
array of machine-gun nests, and brought back information about what was
in store for the next attack; for the German, as we know, was much in
earnest on the east flank of the whale-back. On the night of the 6th
the brigade which had been in front during these two days was relieved
by the brigade in reserve. On the 7th and 8th, while there was more or
less of a lull in the battle everywhere except in the Aire valley and
the Argonne, the 80th was busy with patrols, locating enemy pill-boxes
for the information of the artillery, and preparing for its part in the
general attack of the 9th all along the line--the attack that brought
us up to the main line of defenses at many points--the third great
attack of the battle. September 26th, October 4th, and October 9th are
the three dates.
The 80th did not start at daylight, the same hour as the 3rd on its
left. Its thrust waited on the advance of the 3rd to a certain point.
At 3.15 the word came for the 80th to attack. After fifteen minutes of
furious artillery, the first wave rose and moved forward in face of
the machine-guns, while the enemy brought down a curtain of shell-fire
in front of the second wave when it rose, in order to keep it from
supporting the first, whose ranks were being rapidly thinned; but all
the powers of destruction which the enemy could bring to bear could not
stay the men of the fresh brigade in their hard-won stages of progress,
now that the slopes and the Ogons were at their back. They took the
strong point of the Ville-aux-Bois farm, and still going after dark
they reached the Cunel-Brieulles road.
There was a familiar sound to that word Brieulles. The 80th on
September 28th had attacked the hills in front of this town at the bend
in the river. Brieulles was still in the enemy's hands, but the village
of Cunel was ahead in the dark night. There must be numerous Germans
in Cunel. In stealthy audacity two companies of the Blue Ridge men now
turned a trick that would have rejoiced the heart of Jeb Stuart or
Colonel Mosby. They slipped into Cunel very quietly, and returned with
two crestfallen German battalion staffs--thirty officers and sixty
men--whom they had caught completely by surprise.
The next morning the enemy had his revenge of the kind which his hidden
long-range artillery in its lofty positions out of reach of our guns
might take. An attack was ordered for 7 A.M. As it was forming, and the
morning light dissipated the mist, the watchful German observers were
taking notes and passing the word to the gunners in Brieulles and in
the Rappes and Pultière woods. The minute-hands were near the "H" hour
on wrist watches, and the line ready, when a concentration of screams
came from three directions, and geysers of earth and shell fragments
and gusts of shrapnel had something of the effect of a volcanic fissure
opened at the men's feet. Officers were killed or thrown down by the
concussion in the midst of their hasty directions. Two companies were
decimated, two others scattered in confusion, by this sudden and
infernal visitation; but this did not mean that the Blue Ridge men were
to give up making the attack. They reorganized and charged according
to orders. The enemy guns which had caused such havoc in their ranks
disputed their advance. Against this whirlwind they managed to go
beyond the Brieulles-Cunel road, but could not hold their positions.
The Germans made the road a dead line, and for days to come its ribbon
was to be the clear gray background upon which human targets were
clearly visible to their watchful gunners. The "pinch-hitting" 80th was
the only division thus far that had been twice in the battle line of
the Meuse-Argonne. Before it went in again, its infantry was to have
a real rest, though its artillery, engineers, and ammunition train
remained to support the 5th Division which took its place.