No thought of peace at Souilly--The third attack--The Rainbow
Division before Chatillon ridge--Three days of confused combat--Over
the ridge--The Arrows sweep through Romagne--Outflanking the Dame
Marie ridge--The new Ace of Diamonds Division--In and out--A
corridor of fire--Knitting through the Pultière Wood--A fumble in
the Rappes Wood--Which is finally "riveted"--The long-enduring Marne
Division--Knits further progress.
On the late afternoon of October 13th I happened to be in the stuffy
little ante-room at Souilly, when, his great figure filling the
doorway, Liggett came out from a conference with Pershing. His face
was glowing, his eyes were sparkling as if he had seen a vision come
true. We were planning to have four million men in France in the
summer of 1919. Its new commander might think of his First Army, after
three weeks of battle in the Meuse-Argonne, as only the nucleus of our
growing strength.
A few minutes after he had left the ante-room General Pershing's aide
received an item of news over the telephone from Paris. This announced
that the Germans had provisionally accepted President Wilson's Fourteen
Points. Thought turned from our own to other battlefields. Austria had
practically thrown up her hands. Turkey was isolated and demoralized.
Bulgaria had surrendered; the Serbs and Allied troops were marching to
Belgrade; the Belgians were at the gates of Bruges, the British four
days later were to enter Lille, and the French had taken Laon in the
sweep across the open country. Was the end in sight? So long and so
stubbornly had the German armies held out, so habitual had war became,
that we who were close to the front saw vaguely as yet the handwriting
on the wall which was so distinct to the German command. We knew that
the Germans had many times dallied with peace proposals in the hope of
weakening Allied morale.
When I went in to see General Pershing, he turned to his big map on the
wall, and ran his finger over the Romagne positions. "Liggett is losing
no time. He's attacking tomorrow," he said. After he had referred to
the plan, he fell to talking of the young reserve officers, their
courage, the rapidity with which they had learned their lessons, of
the fortitude and initiative of the men, who produced leaders among
themselves when their officers fell in action. He had had to drive them
very hard; this was the only way to hasten the end of the war. His
voice trembled and his eyes grew moist as he dwelt on the sacrifice of
life. For the moment he was not a commander under control of an iron
purpose, but an individual allowing himself an individual's emotion.
Then his aide came in and laid a little slip of paper on his desk,
remarking that it contained the news of the German acceptance. I asked
the general what he thought of the chance of peace.
"I know nothing about it," he said. "Our business is to go on fighting
until I receive orders to cease fire. We must have no other thought, as
soldiers."
The only negotiations in his province and in that of the Allied armies
were of the kind they had been using for four years: the kind which had
brought the Germans to their present state of mind. The prospect of
peace should make us fight all the harder, as a further argument for
the enemy to yield speedily. Not until the day of the armistice did our
preparations diminish, at home or in France, for carrying on the war
on an increasing scale of force. Throughout October and the first ten
days of November our cablegrams to Washington continued to call for
all the material required for four million men in the summer of 1919.
Indiscreet as it would have been to encourage the enemy by confessing
to our paucity of numbers and lack of material in the summer of 1917,
we might lay all our cards on the table in the autumn of 1918.
Liggett's attack of October 14th was our last effort which could be
called a general attack before the final drive beginning November 1st,
which broke the German line. The general attack of September 26th had
broken through the old trench system for deep gains; that of October
4th, with the driving of two wedges on either side of the whale-back,
had taken the Aire valley and the gap of Grandpré, and brought us up to
the Kriemhilde Stellung, or main line of resistance of the whale-back;
that of October 14th aimed to drive a wedge on either side of the
Romagne heights, taking the Kriemhilde, the two wedges meeting at Grand
Carré farm in their converging movement to deliver the heights into our
hands. Thus Army ambition was soaring again. If it had succeeded, we
should have been up to the Freya Stellung, another fragmentary trench
system, the second and inferior line of resistance of the whale-back,
and we might not have had to wait another two weeks for victory. The
progress of the other armies summoned us, as it had at every stage
of the battle, to a superhuman effort to reach the German line of
communications, which might now mean a complete military disaster for
the enemy.
The 32nd was still facing the Côte Dame Marie and the town of Romagne
in front of the loop in the Kriemhilde. On its left was the 42nd, which
had just relieved the exhausted 1st and was to drive the western wedge
through the trench system of the Chatillon ridge and on through the
Romagne Wood and the large Bantheville Wood.
I have written so much in my first book about the 42nd, in its Baccarat
sector, in its "stone-walling" against the fifth German offensive, in
the Château-Thierry counter-offensive, that it seems necessary to say
only that it was the Rainbow Division, the second of National Guard
divisions to arrive in France, which had shown such mettle, immediately
it was sent to the trenches, that it was given every test which a
toughened division might be asked to undergo. Major-General Charles T.
Menoher, who had been in command throughout its battle service, had the
poise requisite to handling the infantry regiments from Alabama, Iowa,
New York, and Ohio, and all the other units from many States, in their
proud rivalry.
The Arrows of the 32nd, from Michigan and Wisconsin, now on the
Rainbows' right, had been on their right when both divisions crossed
the Ourcq and stormed the heights with a courage that disregarded
appalling casualties. Neither the 42nd nor the 32nd would admit that
it had any equals among National Guard divisions. After their weeks
of fighting in the Marne region, the Rainbows had come out with
staggeringly numerous gaps in their ranks as a result of their victory,
which had been filled by replacements who were not even now fully
trained. They had been in line for the Saint-Mihiel attack, but were
brought to the Argonne to be ready in reserve when a veteran division
should be required for a vital thrust. No sooner had they gone into
line than they found that the enemy, taking a lesson from the success
of the 1st and the 32nd and the 3rd, which had entered the Kriemhilde,
had been improving his Kriemhilde line, concentrating more artillery
and establishing machine-gun posts to cover any points where experience
had developed weakness. The Kriemhilde had thus far resisted all our
attacks. It combined many of the defensive advantages of the old trench
system with the latest methods of open war defense upon chosen and very
formidable ground. The 42nd was to storm one of its key points, the
Chatillon ridge.
Will any officer or man of the division forget the days of October
14th, 15th, and 16th? At the very start they were at close quarters,
their units intermingling with the Germans in rush and counter-rush, in
the midst of machine-gun nests, trenches, and wire entanglements, where
man met man in a free-for-all grapple to the death. The rains were at
their worst. Every fighter was sopping wet. It was impossible to know
where units were in that fiendish battle royal, isolated by curtains of
fire.
Summerall was now in command of the Fifth Corps. "Per schedule" and
"go through" Summerall, who had driven a human wedge as a division
commander, was to drive another as a corps commander. His restless
personal observation kept touch with the work of brigade and regiment;
his iron will was never more determined.
The 42nd did not keep to the impossible objective beyond, but it did
"go through" the formidable Kriemhilde, which had been our nightmare
for three weeks, in one of the most terrifically concentrated actions
of the battle. There was hard-won progress on the first day on the
bloody slopes of Hill 288, while patrols, pushing ahead, found
themselves under cross-fire which could not be withstood. When night
came, the units in front were already exhausted in a day of fighting of
the most wearing kind. "Attack again!" Wire which was not on artillery
maps, swept by machine-gun fire, meant delay, but no repulse. The
German resistance was unusually brave and skillful in making the most
of positions as vital and well-prepared as they were naturally strong.
The right, its units rushing here and crawling there to avoid the
blasts of machine-gun fire, had put Hill 242 and Hill 288 well behind
it on the second day, and had reached the gassed Romagne Wood. The
center was held up on the slippery and tricky ascents of the Chatillon
ridge, where the German machine-gunners stood until they were killed
or so badly wounded that they could not serve their guns; and the
German infantry, literally in a fortress stronghold, became more
desperate with every hour throughout the afternoon, while dusk found
the shivering and tenacious Rainbows dug into the sodden earth and
holding their ground. Shattered units were reorganized, and fresh units
sent forward for the attack of the next day, which took the ridge. The
Kriemhilde Stellung was won.
Those three days had been more horrible than even the Rainbows had
known: days which have either to be told in infinite detail, or
expressed as a savage wrestle for mastery. Few prisoners might be taken
in such confused fighting, when the Germans stuck to the last to their
fox-holes and their fragments of trenches. The path of the advance
was strewn with German dead. Army ambition had gained much, if not
its extreme goal. It had a jumping-off place for a final and decisive
general attack. There remained nothing further for the 42nd during
the next two weeks except to make sure that its gains were not lost.
This required constant patrols and costly vigils under gas, artillery,
and machine-gun fire, which were very wearing. On October 30th the
division was relieved by the 2nd, which passed through it for the great
advance of November 1st. The 42nd had suffered 2,895 casualties in
this operation. It could retire after its victory, in full confidence
that it had kept faith with the high expectations of its future from
the day of its organization. It had brought great honor to itself as a
division, to the whole National Guard, and to the replacement officers
and men who had served in it.
The 32nd's attack on October 14th was of course intimately connected
with that of the 42nd. Having assisted the 1st to drive the wedge over
the wall of the Aire, the Arrows had still enough vitality left to
carry out their eager desire to complete the conquest of the section
of the Kriemhilde on their front. They knew that they had a hard nut
to crack, and they began its cracking by turning all the power of
their artillery on to the German positions from noon of the 13th until
5.30 on the morning of the 14th, when, under as deep a barrage as the
tireless artillery could make, they started for the entrenchments on
the Dame Marie ridge, and the town of Romagne. Their left struggled up
the slopes of the ridge, but had to halt and dig in, waiting for more
artillery preparation to silence the array of machine-guns and guns
which, despite the eighteen hours of bombardment, began firing almost
as soon as the charge began.
On the right success was more prompt. By noon a battalion was past the
village which had resisted so many attempts to capture it. Knowing
Romagne of old, the right had executed a clever flanking movement,
under the special protection of a flexible barrage, which outwitted
the enemy. By 11.30 the village was in the hands of the swiftly moving
Arrows, and entirely mopped up. Its name might now be inscribed on the
division banners with those of Fismes and Juvigny. The Germans had
arranged many bloody traps in the streets, but the men of the 32nd had
taken too many positions from the enemy to be fooled by such tricks.
The left meanwhile was burrowing into the steep and slippery sides of
the Dame Marie ridge, with a blast of machine-gun fire grilling every
head that showed itself. There are occasions when officer and soldier
know that the odds are too great against them; when they halt and dig,
from the same instinct that makes a man step back from a passing train.
This was such an occasion. It looked as if the ridge could not possibly
be taken in front, when the men on the extreme flank, quick to press
forward instantly there was any opening in the wall of fire, saw their
opportunity. The 42nd, with their first onrush halted, had kept on
pushing, and they were driving the Germans off Hill 288, which had been
pouring its fire into the ranks of the 32nd men facing the Dame Marie.
This gave a purchase for a tactical stroke, which was improved before
the German realized that he had fumbled, and could retrieve himself.
A reserve battalion which was hastened forward slipped around to the
left of the Dame Marie. With its pressure on the flank, and that of
the center regiment, which had lost _liaison_ on the left but had no
thought of stopping while it could keep up with the right, the enemy
was forced completely off the ridge by dark, and the advance pressed
on into the woods beyond. The Arrows had now not only penetrated the
Kriemhilde, but had gone clear through it. Too much gold can not be
used in State capitals in inscribing the Dame Marie beside the heights
of the Ourcq to glorify the deeds of the 32nd for the admiration of
future generations. Despite its two weeks' hard service, it was to
remain in line,--or rather to continue advancing for four days longer,
as it grappled with the machine-gun nests in Bantheville Wood.
On the night of the 19th-20th it was relieved by the 89th. All the
survivors among numerous replacements which it had received after
Juvigny could claim to belong to that fraternity of veterans, which,
from the hour they marched down the apron of the Ourcq in parade
formation in the face of the enemy's guns, had shown the qualities
which make armies unconquerable. No division ever stuck to its knitting
more consistently, or had been readier to take the brunt of any action.
Its part in the Meuse-Argonne battle had been vital and prolonged.
The number of its prisoners, all taken in small groups in desperate
fighting, was 1,095, its casualties were 5,019, and it had identified
the elements of nine German divisions on its front.
On its right in the attack of October 14th a division new to the
great battle had come into line--the regular 5th, under command of
Major-General John E. McMahon. Its emblem was the ace of diamonds.
The 5th was just as regular as the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th, and it had
no inkling of a doubt that it could prove as ably as the other four
that it was the "best" regular division. As a basis for its confidence
was its record in Lorraine, where it had preparation for a larger
role in its faultless taking of the village of Frapelle, when for
the first time in two years the Vosges mountains had resounded with
the bombardment of an offensive action. Officers and men had been
thoroughly drilled. Uniformity had not suffered from the injection of
inexperienced replacements. The 5th had both the ardor of the fresh
divisions which had gone in on September 26th without having previously
been under fire, and long trench service, which made the Aces the more
eager to be in the "big show."
The command took them at their own estimate in a characteristic--an
aggravatedly characteristic--fashion. If ever a division were warranted
in losing heart on the ground that their superiors were "not playing
the game" with them, it was the 5th, which was submitted to everything
in the way of changing orders that is ruinous to morale. It was moved
about without any regard to the chessboard rules of war. Doubtless
this was necessary; but it was hard on the 5th, though it was only to
confirm other people, including the Germans, in the opinion that the
5th was a great division.
On the night of October 11th-12th a brigade of the 5th was ordered
to take over the line of the 80th and a part of the line of the 4th.
The sector was on the Cunel-Brieulles road, where the 80th had been
checked, and under the flanking fire of the galleries of guns, on the
right from east of the Meuse, on the left from the whale-back, as well
as in front, which I have described fully in my account of the 4th
division. Relief was not completed until after daylight, at 6.30 in the
morning. Patrols were sent forward into the Pultière Wood when word
came that the Germans were massing for a counter-attack. The 5th was
preparing to receive them, and establishing itself in its sector, when
orders came that it was to withdraw. Nothing irritates a soldier of
spirit more than to be sent into position for action, and then to turn
his back upon the enemy. Withdraw! The aces of diamonds to withdraw!
They were willing to play the game, but they were filled with disgust
at such an order. After long marches from the rear, after spending
the whole night in effecting a most difficult relief under continuous
fire, after a day full of annoyances in organizing an uncertain line
swept by shell-bursts, they were to march back, through the night in
the gamut of the enemy artillery, which became increasingly active
in evident knowledge of their exposure. Units had as much reason for
becoming confused as they would have in a night attack.
Disheartened at having to retreat--for that was the word for the
maneuver--some showed less alacrity than in going to the front, while
the filtering process of withdrawal under the cross-fire was bound to
separate men from their commands. The language they used of course
was against the German artillery, not against high commanders. A part
of the relief had to be carried out in broad daylight in sight of the
German artillery observers; indeed, it was not finished until noon.
Without having made a single charge, the brigade had been exhausted and
suffered many casualties.
The change of plan considered using the 5th as a fresh division, which
it would not long remain if this kind of maneuvering were continued.
Army ambition had decided that it was to be the eastern wedge in the
converging attack to Grand Carré farm, of which the 42nd was to be the
western. Hence a change of sectors for the 5th, which, after marching
into hell's jaws and out again, was to be "side-slipped" into the
sector of the amazingly tenacious 3rd, which, though it might well be
considered "expended" by its severe casualties and long exertions, was
to take over the wicked sector from which the 5th had been withdrawn.
"Side-slipping" was almost as common and hateful a word in the battle
as _liaison_. Consider a battalion as a bit of paper fastened by a pin
to a map, and moving it right or left was a simple matter; but moving
men under shell- and machine-gun fire, in the darkness, from one series
of fox-holes to another with which they were not familiar, you may be
assured on the word of any soldier, who lost a night's sleep, while
soaked to the skin by the chill rain, and had his comrades killed in
the process, was anything but a simple matter.
Naturally the three divisions, the 5th, 32nd, and 42nd, were
interdependent for success in this converging attack. As the veterans
of the 42nd, doing all that veterans could do, were three days in
taking the Chatillon ridge, and the regulars of the 5th could not bring
to life their dead in the Rappes Wood to continue charging, either
division had another reason than the unconquerable resistance on its
own front for not keeping the schedule of high ambition.
According to the original plan, the Aces of the 5th, passing through
the 3rd, were to advance across open ground in a corridor between the
artillery fire of the Romagne heights and the flanking machine-gun
nests of the Pultière and Rappes Woods, over which flanking artillery
fire would pass from the heights east of the Meuse. The 5th's commander
was to change the plan--another change with additional maneuvers,
though a wise one--by attacking the Pultière Wood, which would save the
Aces from some flanking machine-gun fire on the right.
It should have been no surprise, after the commotion due to the
"side-slipping," double reliefs, and counter-marching, that the enemy
knew that an attack was coming. Only if he had lost all tactical sense
would he have failed to foresee its nature. He was ready with all his
galleries of guns, and with his machine-guns regrouped to meet the
emergency, when the wave of the 5th, including troops which had been up
two nights in making a relief, being relieved, and taking over again,
began the attack, under insufficient artillery support, in all the
ardor of their first charge in the great battle.
Our barrage had not silenced the machine-gun nests, which began firing
immediately. The enemy's ample artillery shelled our echelons in
support, causing losses and a certain amount of inevitable confusion,
as they were forced to take cover and deploy. It also laid down a
barrage in front of our first wave; but the Aces passed through the
swath of the bursts in steady progress up the bare slopes under
increasing machine-gun fire, and reached the crests of Hills 260 and
271. There they were exposed to all the guns of the galleries, and
to machine-gun fire from the direction of Bantheville in front, from
Romagne on the left, and the Pultière and Rappes woods on the right.
To pass over the crest and down the slopes into the valley beyond
was literally to open their arms to receive the bullets and shells.
What use was it for the 5th's batteries to face around due east from
the line of attack toward the enemy batteries behind the Borne de
Cornouiller, which were out of their reach?
The Pultière, the southern of the two woods, was about half the size
of the Rappes, which was a mile long and separated from it by a narrow
open space. The ground was uneven, sloping upward to hills which made
the defense of their depths the easier. Our exploiting force sent into
the Pultière to protect the flank of the main advance had not been
strong enough for its purpose. After passing through flanking fire from
the direction of Cunel, it was checked in the woods by the machine-guns
concealed in the thickets, which also gave cover for machine-guns
firing not only into the flank but into the right rear of the main
advance. The next step was to take the Pultière by a concentrated
attack during the afternoon, which drove forward until we had dug in
face to face with the remaining machine-gunners in an irregularity
of line which was always the result of determined units fighting
machine-gun nests in a forest. The Aces who had won this much, their
fighting blood fully aroused, proceeded to carry out their mission
the next day, the 15th, of further relieving the flank of the advance
on the hills, which was being sorely punished as it held to its gains
under storms of shells.
Now imperishable valor was to lead to a tragedy of misunderstanding.
On through the northern edge of Pultière Wood, across the open space
between the two woods in face of the machine-gun fire from the edge
of the Rappes Wood, then through the dense growth of the Rappes,
infiltrating around machine-gun nests, and springing upon their gunners
in surprise, again charging them full tilt in front, passing by many
which were "playing possum," these Aces of American infantrymen,
numbers thinning from death and wounds, but having no thought except to
"get there," kept on until a handful of survivors reached the northern
edge of the Rappes. This was their destination. They had gone where
they were told to go. They dug in among the tree roots in the inky
darkness, without the remotest idea of falling back, as they waited for
support to come.
Now on the morning of that day, the 15th--after casualties had been
streaming back all night under shell-fire from the bare hills which
were being resolutely held with rapidly diminishing numbers,--it was
found that the total remaining effectives of three regiments were only
eleven hundred men, a hundred more than one battalion. Having asked the
Corps for reserves, the division commander had attacked for the Rappes
Wood as we have seen. The reports that came in to Division Headquarters
from the morning's effort showed that we were making little progress in
the wood, and were having very hard fighting still in the Pultière. The
brigade commander ordered another attack on Rappes for the afternoon.
This the division commander countermanded. In view of lack of support
on his flank, the continuing drain of casualties and the situation of
the division as a whole, he felt warranted in indicating that any units
which might have made an entry into Rappes withdraw to the Pultière.
The next morning patrols which reached the men who were in the northern
edge of Rappes passed on the word that they were to fall back. The
gallant little band, surrounded by German snipers, had not been able to
send back any message. Weren't they of the 5th? Hadn't they been told
to "go through" the wood? Was it not the regulation in the 5th to obey
orders? Withdraw! Very well; this was orders, too. From their fox-holes
where, so far at least, they had held their own in a sniping contest
with the enemy, they retraced their steps over the ground they had won
past the bodies of their dead comrades. Before Division Headquarters
knew of their success, the evacuation of Rappes was completed.
The night of the 16th the total rifle strength of the division was
reported as 3,316, or a little more than one-fourth of normal. On the
17th Major-General Hanson E. Ely took command of the 5th. He was of the
school of the 1st, long in France; a blue-eyed man of massive physique,
who met all situations smilingly and with a firm jaw. The Pultière Wood
was definitely mopped up during the day.
The brigade which had been in the 3rd Division's sector and suffered
the most casualties and exhaustion was relieved. At least the 5th,
weakened as it was by a battle in which the Aces fought as if they were
the whole pack of cards, must hold the Pultière, and Hills 260 and 271.
On the night of the 16th-17th the divisional engineers did a remarkable
piece of work, even for engineers. They brought up under shell-fire and
gas, and laid under shell- and machine-gun fire, two thousand yards of
double wire to protect the tired infantry, which was busily digging in,
against counter-attacks.
By this time, of course, the prospect of taking Grand Carré farm by
the converging movement seemed out of the question. The farm was
more than a mile beyond Bantheville, which was nearly a mile beyond
the southern edge of the Rappes Wood. But when the 32nd reported
progress in the Bantheville Wood on the 18th, and its patrols had
seen no one in Bantheville, the 5th was sent to the attack again. Its
patrols, which reached the edge of the town, found it well populated
with machine-gunners, who might have only recently arrived. As
for the Rappes Wood, all the cunning and daring we could exert in
infiltration could take us only four hundred yards into its depths,
where the Germans had been forewarned to preparedness by their previous
experience.
On the 19th the 5th held fast under the welter of shell-fire from the
heights and across the Meuse, while General Ely straightened out his
organization, and applied remedies for a better _liaison_ between
the artillery and the infantry. On the 20th, the idea of "pushing"
still dominant, under a heavy barrage the 5th concentrated all its
available numbers of exhausted men in a hastily formed plan for
another attempt for the Rappes Wood. It made some two hundred yards'
progress against the sprays of bullets ripping through the thickets.
The 5th was "expended" in vitality and numbers after these grueling
six days; but it was not to give up while the Germans were in the
Rappes Wood. The Aces made swift work of its taking on the next day.
Their artillery and that of the 3rd on their left gave the men a good
rolling barrage. The enemy artillery replied in a storm immediately;
but the Aces, assisted by the men of the 3rd Division attacking from
their side, drove through the shell-fire and all the machine-gun nests
with what one of the men called a "four of a kind" sweep. At 5 P.M.
the reports said that the wood was not only occupied but "riveted." At
6 P.M. the enemy answered this success with a counter-attack, which
the 5th's artillery met, in three minutes after it had started, with a
barrage which was its undoing. Having consolidated Rappes and avenged
the pioneers who had first traversed it, the 5th was now relieved by
the 90th, and sent to corps reserve. The exposure had brought on much
sickness, which increased the gaps due to casualties. Absorbing three
thousand replacements, General Ely, reflecting in his personality the
spirit of his men, was now to prepare them for their brilliant part in
the drive of November 1st.
The 3rd Division, on the right of the 5th, had had of course to submit
to the same annoyance of "side-slipping" as the 5th in the interchange
of sectors. Having assisted in driving one of the wedges of October
4th, it was now to continue under the shell-fire from the neighborhood
of the Borne de Cornouiller across the Meuse in forcing its way still
farther. It made slow and difficult progress in the eastern edge of
the Pultière Wood and the Forêt Wood on the 14th, and, the division
sector being swung east, as the 5th, in turn dependent upon the other
divisions, had a misfortune in the Rappes Wood, not even the dependable
infantry of the 3rd could make headway under flanking fire against the
Clairs Chênes Wood and Hill 299.
On the 16th Brigadier-General Preston Brown, one of the younger
brigadiers, a well-known Leavenworth man who had been chief of staff
of the 2nd Division in its stand on the Paris-Château-Thierry road,
took command of the 3rd. His appointment was significant of how youth
will always be served under the test of war. On the 17th nothing was
expected of the division by the Corps; on the 18th it advanced in
_liaison_ with the 5th in the attack on the Rappes Wood, which only
partially succeeded. Now that tough and dependable 3rd took over the
front of the 4th Division, which had been in since September 26th, and
with all four regiments in line its front reached to the bank of the
Meuse from Cunel.
On the 20th, the day that the 5th was to take Rappes, General Brown
now having made his preparations, the 3rd went for Clairs Chênes Wood
and Hill 299 in deadly earnest, which meant that something would
have to "break." It was characteristic of the handicaps under which
every division labored that in crossing the open spaces on their way
to Clairs Chênes the 3rd had flanking machine-gun fire from the
machine-guns in the Rappes Wood, which had not yet been taken. The 3rd
took Clairs Chênes, but the flanking movement planned for the taking
of 299 could not go through. The next day General Brown converged two
attacks upon 299 and 297. Two of the highest hills in the region, which
had long been a vantage point for observers, were won, and the 3rd's
line straightened out with veteran precision.
The 3rd had been going too fast these last two days to suit the
enemy's plans of defense. He concentrated his artillery in a violent
bombardment on Clairs Chênes, and under a barrage worthy of German
gunners in their most prodigal days the German infantry, in one of
those spasmodic counter-attacks which showed all their former spirit,
forced our machine-gunners and engineers to withdraw. A regimental
commander repeated an incident of the 3rd's defense of Mézy and the
railroad track along the Marne, when he gathered runners and all the
men he could find in the vicinity, and led them in a charge which
drove the Germans out of the wood, and re-established the line. The
Germans found what compensation they could by pounding Hill 299 all
night with their guns; but that hill was too high and too valuable to
be yielded by such stalwart dependables as the men of the 3rd. During
the next five days, while our whole line was preparing for the drive
of November 1st, the 3rd's active patrols even entered the village of
Brieulles on the river bank, which for over four weeks had been a sore
point with us; but they were told that it was too dangerous a position
to hold, and withdrew.
On the night of the 26th the 3rd was relieved by the 5th, now
recuperated. It was a pity that the 3rd, after its wonderful record in
the battle, could not have participated in the sweep of our battalions
down the far slopes of the whale-back. In line since October 1st,
four weeks lacking two days, it had paid a price for taking the
Mamelle trench, and for all its enduring, skillful attacks under that
diabolical cross-fire from the galleries of heights. Its casualties,
8,422, were more than half its infantry, and, taken in connection
with the positions it gained and its length of service, are an
all-sufficient tribute to its character.