Stalwart 89th and 90th--Bantheville Wood cleaned up by the 89th--The
90th to the Freya system--The 5th, back in line, takes Aincreville
and Brieulles--America's two-edged sword--An aggressive army
and the Fourteen Points--Would the German links snap?--A last
push--The military machine running smoothly--Vigorous divisions in
line--Veterans in reserve--"We will go through."
The rest of the picture, which had been done in the miniature of
agonizing efforts for small gains, was now to be painted in bold
strokes on a swiftly flowing canvas. During the last ten days of
October, after the general attack of the 14th had slowed down, our
preparations for the final attack included the taking of certain
positions which would be serviceable as "jumping-off" places, and the
arrival of two conspicuously able National Army divisions.
The 89th had been formed under Major-General Leonard Wood, which
assured that the men of clear eyes and fine physique, drafted from
Kansas and Missouri, would be well and sympathetically trained. If the
division might not have Wood at its head in France, it was to have in
his successor, Major-General William M. Wright, a leader worthy to
exemplify the standards he had established. All the army knew "Bill"
Wright, a man of the world as well as an all-round soldier, practical
and broad-minded, who faced a problem or an enemy in all four-square
robustness and energetic determination. In the Saint-Mihiel drive, and
afterward in the Saint-Mihiel sector, the 89th had fully met the high
expectation of its old commander and his admirers.
His men were as devoted to Major-General Henry T. Allen, who had formed
the 90th from recruits and commanded it in France. The six feet of
"Hal" Allen were as straight, now that his hair was gray, and he was as
spare in body and as youthful in spirit as in the days when he was a
lieutenant of cavalry, or organized the Philippine Constabulary. He too
was known to all the army, always "all there," whether on parade or in
a stuffy dugout, or in any group of men at home or abroad. When he went
among his tall Texans they said that they had a general who looked like
a general. Both Allen and Wright were afterward rewarded with corps
commands for their service in the concluding drive of the battle.
As for the spirit of the infantry of the 90th during all the battle,
only three stragglers were reported from the whole division. They were
from Texas, as they were prompt to tell you. They had shown in the
mire of the Saint-Mihiel salient that men from a very dry atmosphere
can endure penetrating humid cold as well as the hot sun. The sight
of them, no less than of the 89th and other divisions from the Middle
West, was an assurance that anemia does not flourish in their native
States. Neither the 89th nor the 90th had received enough replacements
to change their local character. Their regional pride was accordingly
almost as strong as their divisional pride. Both, when they arrived in
the Meuse-Argonne, were considered as "shock" divisions, so rapid had
been their progress in efficiency since they had come to France.
Taking over from the 32nd on October 19th, the 89th immediately
proceeded to clean up the troublesome Bantheville Wood. Though the
operation was entirely successful, it required severe fighting under
other adverse conditions than machine-gun and artillery fire, which
grew worse, the farther the infantry advanced. The roads through the
wood, which was continually gassed, were impassable. Stretcher-bearers
had to wade in mud knee-deep for the mile and a half of its length
in bringing back the shivering wounded, and the men stricken with
influenza.
When the Germans built that excellent bathing and disinfecting plant
at Gesnes, they did the 89th a good turn. Taking care of over four
thousand of our exhausted men, it was the adjutant of their fine
physique in so conserving the strength of the division that it was
able, after ten days of action and exposure which might well have
"expended" it, to fight its way to the Meuse and across the Meuse in
the ten days of advance from November 1st until the armistice.
The 90th, taking over on October 22nd from the 5th Division in that
violent sector of the Rappes Wood in front of Bantheville, under the
cross artillery fire from the heights of the whale-back and east of
the Meuse, its line joining the 89th on the left, made a spring for
the village of Bantheville on the 23rd, capturing and holding it. The
next day it drove ahead until it was up to the Freya Stellung, the
second line of defense of the whale-back, with a precision that defied
the enemy's artillery and machine-guns. The Freya was not as strong as
the Kriemhilde, neither being of course a trench system in the former
accepted sense; but the Freya had fragments of trenches and strong
positions for machine-guns, linked together in characteristic mobile
defense. Eager as the Texans were to attack the Freya, it was not in
the plan that they should. They were to dig in and expose themselves
as little as possible to the cross artillery fire, and "make medicine"
for their part in the general attack, which would sweep over the Freya
on November 1st. The Germans tried several counter-attacks; but every
one was promptly repulsed by the accurate fire of the Texans, whom the
deluges of shells could not budge from their positions.
Meanwhile the tried regulars of the 5th Division, which had come into
line on the Meuse flank on October 27th, had a few chores to do before
they were to carry out their brilliant programme in crossing the Meuse.
I use the word chores, because the Aces, now refreshed and full of
"pep," made their successes appear to be little more. We had not yet
taken Brieulles on the river bank, though it had been set as a part of
the Army objective of the initial attack of September 26th. For four
weeks it had been whipping our flanks with its machine-gun fire and
protecting enfilading German batteries. After having vigilantly pushed
forward aggressive patrols, which seized vantage points, in a rush in
the darkness on the morning of the 30th, the 5th took Aincreville.
That evening skirmishers went into Brieulles, and cleared it of the
enemy. To a point opposite Liny, where the river curved westward, we
had straightened out our line on the Meuse bank, shortening our Third
Corps front, which at the same time had cut deeper into the flank of
the Barricourt ridge, the final crest of the whale-back.
This was cheerful news for our Army command. It was an augury
confirming all our information in the latter days of October. The
rapid advance of the other Allied armies to the west was having a
pronounced effect. Indeed, during the second stage of the Meuse-Argonne
battle, powerful as the German resistance had been, it was not that of
full divisions, as a rule, but of elements of divisions hurried into
line, their officers sometimes uncertain of the identity of units on
their flanks, as they strove to obey orders to hold at any cost. An
army, in its many units, is like a series of steel links. For over four
years the German army had presented a front possessed of the alternate
mobility of a chain and the rigidity of a steel wall. So rapidly was
German morale now deteriorating that it looked as if the chain, worn by
attrition, might snap in a confusion of scattering links.
America's part in this juncture was that of a two-edged sword. One
edge was preparing to strike with all our military force against the
German front. It is needless to repeat how influential is psychologic
suggestion on a soldier's mood. Our soldiers were forbidden to speak
of peace; all thought of peace being as resolutely suppressed in the
military mind as apprehension of defeat, when the German offensives in
the spring had seemed to be threatening Paris. The average soldier,
being a human being, and particularly the veteran who had survived many
battles, if he thought the end were near, did not want to be the "last
man killed in the war." The more he had endured, the more he wanted to
live. So we must leave peace to the peace-makers. The war-makers must
keep at war. The harder we fought in the days to come, the better we
served the purpose of President Wilson, the Commander-in-Chief.
The other edge of our sword was his Fourteen Points. The German soldier
now knew that he could never undertake another offensive. Henceforth
his back was against the wall. A soldier who submitted to the will of
his superiors in full faith in their promises of victory, a soldier
who fought peculiarly for victory on enemy soil, found his great
organization, which he had been told was unconquerable, breaking, and
himself yielding in disheartening retreat the ground that his sacrifice
had won. He may have thought that he had fought in his country's
defense by invading France; now he knew that defense had become a
matter of the defense of his own soil. Would he fight to the last
ditch? Would he resist on the Meuse as the British had at Ypres, and
the French at Verdun, and the South at Appomattox? The question was for
him, the soldier, to answer. It always is, in every war. Leadership and
staff work can effect nothing, unless the soldiers are for battle. The
aim of all the propaganda on both sides was to promote the fighting
spirit of the masses at home and at the front.
Germany still had millions of armed men, a great staff organization,
and immense numbers of guns and quantities of ammunition. The organic
disintegration was due to the mood of the Kaiser's atoms, his men.
Strike a spark in them, flaming into desperate common defense as a
people--and the German army might show as a whole something of the
resistance to the death of individual units in the Meuse-Argonne. It
was all very well to talk of a swift movement to Berlin; but the Allied
armies were themselves becoming exhausted. They were running short of
fresh divisions; they were hampered for lack of transport and horses.
An army advances slowly against rearguard action alone. Between Berlin
and the Allied soldiers, who knew the meaning of interlocking fire from
machine-guns manned by small groups of men, were Luxemburg, the walls
of the Moselle and the Rhine valleys, and all the stretch of country
beyond the Rhine, which meant long lines of railroad communication,
many bridges to be built, and an infinite amount of labor. If a million
German veterans decided that it was better to die than to yield, though
we should go to Berlin, we should have much fighting on the way,
increasing the ghastly cost in lives and treasure which was swamping
the world in blood and debts. A common view of German character during
the war had held that once the Germans knew they were losing, their
resistance would collapse; that they would fight well only when the
odds were in their favor. This hardly accorded with their record under
Frederick the Great. I think that with them, as with all peoples and
all soldiers, much depended upon whether or not some event or train of
events should have again aroused their passion. They lacked food; but
a people in siege desperation will go hungry for a long time.
It was a solace to the German soldier's mind, a tribute to his
courage, for him to think that if America had not come into the war
he would have won it from the other Allies. He had finished Russia
and Rumania; he had France and Britain trembling, when a fresh and
gigantic antagonist appeared against him. His retreats had begun just
as American troops were making their force felt on the battle line.
Despite censorship of the press, belittling our effort, despite the
espionage of officers over their men, word traveled fast from German
soldier to soldier. By talks with others who had fought, if not by
actual contact, every German soldier knew with what freshness and
initiative the Americans fought. If we had been slow in preparing, once
our enormous preparations came to a head in the immense numbers we were
now throwing into battle, the effect was all the more impressive upon
the German soldier, and through him upon the German people.
This same America, which was now attacking with such increasing power,
had made through its President the peace offer of the Fourteen Points,
which had followed his speeches and notes during our neutrality, all to
the same effect: that America--then considered weak and unmilitary--was
not fighting in a war of conquest. The Fourteen Points guaranteed
Germany from the dismemberment and subjection which the military caste
had said would be her fate if she ever yielded to the Allies. After
he awakened to his leaders' failure to give him victory, the Fourteen
Points and associated propaganda were infiltrating into the German
soldier's mind as effectively as German infantry infiltrated down a
ravine or through a patch of woods. One hand of America driving a
bayonet into his face, the other was offering him self-preservation in
the rear. Why fight to the last ditch when such terms were offered?
Three out of four German soldiers were accepting them in the sense that
they were no longer fighting to the death in machine-gun nests. The war
was over; they wanted to go home.
It was these two influences in the latter part of October and early
November which were weakening the enemy's spirit on our front. Our
conviction that this time we would break through waxed stronger every
day. Our men thought of the enemy as groggy; another smashing blow
would topple him. We, too, wanted to go home; we wanted an end of the
horror and the hardship, as the days grew colder and the ground a
moister bed. One supreme effort, and the orgy might be finished. The
second stage of the battle had already passed, in our thoughts. We were
entering a new stage, which should free us from the grim routine of
siege. Something of the fervor of our preparations for the first stage,
tempered and strengthened by the experience gained in the second, was
in our preparation for the third.
Originally Marshal Foch had set the attack for October 28th; but
postponement to November 1st was found to be better suited for his
plans. This gave us time to take Aincreville and Brieulles, to bring
up still more material, and further improve our arrangements. This
time we were to have enough guns. More divisional artillery had come
from the French foundries to the training camps, whence the waiting
gunners brought them to the front. We had an increase of Army and Corps
artillery, while Admiral Plunkett's bluejackets, with their long-range
naval pieces which they wanted to take up as close to the enemy as if
they were machine-guns, were cheering to the eye. Yet altogether we
were to have only one hundred guns of American make in the battle;
all the rest were of French make. Our columns of ammunition trucks,
increased by the recent arrival of large numbers from home, seemed
endless. Great piles of shells were rising beside the roads. The
artillery of the 90th Division alone was to fire over 68,000 rounds in
twenty-four hours on November 1st. All the artillery of divisions in
reserve and in rest were brought up to the line. Artillerymen could
endure longer service than the infantry. Those off duty might steal
some sleep under shell-fire. This time we were to make a shield of
shells, and a bridge of shells, too, for our troops. Despite our deep
concentrations and the quantity of supplies moving, there was none of
the confusion of the early days of the battle. Our staff heads had
learned in a fierce school to control traffic. The machine was running
comparatively smoothly--no military machine can ever run exactly so
except in inspired accounts--equal to the extra and foreseen demand
upon it. Our officers in the different headquarters were making their
tables of barrages and the dispositions for attack with the routine
confidence of clerks balancing a ledger. We were no longer new to war.
The plan for November 1st was only carrying out the final stage of
the first plan which our ambition had dared: a sweep over the last of
the crests of the whale-back, and down the irregular descents toward
the westward course of the Meuse and the Lille-Metz railway. On the
left, the French Fourth Army was pressing against the western edge
of the Bourgogne forest. Our left flank and their right flank were
to "scallop" the forest, while it was filled with gas, instead of
accompanying the flanking movement by a frontal drive, as we did in the
Argonne.
Our National Army divisions had come into their own, the National Guard
divisions, which in the first and second stages had helped to pave
the way for a glorious day, being in reserve, or "resting" in that
muddy Saint-Mihiel sector. In Dickman's First Corps, at the left, were
the 78th Division, still in line after the taking of the citadel and
its ordeal in the Loges Wood; the 77th, come into line for a second
time, after it had been in camp in its own Argonne Forest; and the
peripatetic 80th, which had swung round from the Third Corps, come into
line for the third time. Two divisions formed Summerall's Fifth Corps
in the center: the veteran 2nd, which, after its service in helping
to disengage Rheims, was back "home" in our army; and the 89th, which
had made Bantheville Wood secure as its "jumping-off" place. In Hines'
Third Corps on the right were the 90th Division, which had taken
Bantheville, and the 5th, now masters of Brieulles of evil repute and
of Aincreville. Across the river with the French Second Colonial Corps,
as an influential and thoroughly inclusive part of the whole movement,
the 79th was preparing to start from Molleville farm to storm the Borne
de Cornouiller, and the 26th, the only National Guard division in
the front line, clinging to Belleu Wood and the edge of Ormont Wood,
preparatory to rushing the eastern rim of the bowl.
We know all these divisions of old. Their spurs had been won; they had
tasted what Lord Kitchener called the salt of life in his message to
the little British expeditionary force in August, 1914,--if the mud,
the blood, the lice, the gas, the evisceration of battle is to have
this name rather than that of the acid of death. We know, too, the
three divisions in reserve, which had had a longer experience. Some
of their survivors had been toughened to the point of pickling by the
salt of life. Two of them were National Guard, and one regular--the old
dependables of the pioneers. It was good that they, and the 26th and
the 2nd, too, among the pioneers, were to be in at the finish. Back
of the Third Corps, in reserve on the right, was the 32nd, and of the
First Corps on the left was the 42nd, both fit for any duty after the
rest following their smashing blows which went through the Kriemhilde;
and back of the Fifth Corps was the 1st, which, with usual promptness,
had trained in its ways the replacements who filled the gaps of its
more than 8,000 casualties in its October 4th-11th drive. It was now
under command of Brigadier-General Frank Parker, who was a soldier of
the school of the 1st, and as knightly a young officer as ever won
promotion in battle.
I should have said that these three veteran divisions were to be in at
the finish only in the event of the checking or exhaustion of one of
the divisions in front. Their part was to follow up the advance, ready
to spring into an opening. They were a whip from behind in the Army
policy, which meant this time not only to go through the enemy's final
defense line, but to keep on going. The 42nd seemed to have drawn the
most favorable position for its ambition, as the 78th was worn down by
its attacks on the citadel and Loges Wood, and might have an initial
nervous voltage to drive its legs, but not the reserve strength to
remain long in pursuit. The 1st's prospects seemed very dismal. Do you
suppose that Kansans and Missourians of the 89th were going to yield
place to any division? As for the 2nd, fresh in line, it was the "best"
of the older divisions. You may have that on official authority from
its headquarters, and on the informal authority of every officer and
man of the 2nd, and also from every transport horse or mule, if they
could have spoken. The 1st was also the "best" division, as we know
from equally numerous and valiant authorities. Anyone who cares to
dispute either set of authorities, lacking, of course, information to
justify his opinion, is left to his fate.
Was the race-horse 2nd to allow the 1st to take one rod of its line
of advance? Not while the 2nd had a corporal's guard able to march
and fight; not unless the 1st could leap-frog the 2nd in aeroplanes.
The 1st might do police duty and repair roads after it was tired out
in trying to keep in sight of the 2nd's heels. Were the Texans of
the 90th, who were just becoming warmed up to the Argonne battle, to
allow the 32nd to do anything but trail in their wake? Was the regular
5th, which had taken a lien on the west bank of the Meuse, to accept
assistance from National Guardsmen, even if they were the greedy and
swift Arrows?
We had in this array of divisions--to pass a general compliment, as
they passed few compliments to one another because the "bests" were
so numerous--infantry which thrilled the most stale of observers
with admiration apart from national pride. I had heard much of the
"trench look" and the "battle face," which, as seen by civilians,
sometimes puzzled men long at the front. I saw it, as I understand
it, at Château-Thierry and during the Meuse-Argonne battle; I saw it,
too, in the Ypres salient and at Verdun. It was sharp-featured, in
keeping with lithe muscular bodies, with a smile that possibly took its
character from that "salt of life," a direct look in the eye in answer
to a challenge,--the face of a man who has seen the flight of things
more dangerous than baseballs, who knows grinding discipline, roofless,
fireless billets in midwinter, and the submission of self to a cause in
the grimmest of team-play.
Our infantry were ready, resolutely and confidently ready. All our
gunners, there on the slopes, in the ravines and woods, in the midst
of that array of guns, were ready to pour forth their hurricane of
shells. Our machine-gun battalions, our medical, engineer, and salvage
units, our ammunition trains, our rolling kitchens, were ready. General
Maistre, who came from Marshal Foch to Fifth Corps headquarters the
night before the attack, asked if we would "go through."
"We will go through," Summerall replied.
"Do you want to see my plans?" Summerall asked Pershing.
"No. I know them."
Summerall went out with him to his car.
"Will you go through?" Pershing asked him.
"We will."
Pershing put the same all-embracing question to Hines and Dickman,
and received the same resolute answer. Corps commanders were only
repeating the messages of division, brigade, and battalion commanders,
who were speaking the thought of the men.
"We will go through."