A march of victory in the center--Held on the left--But full speed
on the second day--The 89th stays in--Veterans in leash--The 90th
to the river wall--The 5th pivoting--The Borne at last taken by
the 79th--The 5th gets across the Meuse--Varying resistance to the
main advance--Rainbows give way to French entry into Sedan--In
motion from Meuse to Moselle on the last day--Isolated divisions in
Flanders--Every village in France--The folly of war.
One who moved about in the days before and the night before the attack,
from the railheads to the front, his vision embracing the whole
panorama, no longer need talk of what America was going to do in the
war. He saw what America had done since September 26th between the
ruins of the old trench system and the Kriemhilde Stellung, and he knew
that the army which was to spring into action at dawn on the morning of
November 1st was the greatest in our history.
When the simmering volcano of routine artillery fire broke into
eruption at 3.30, racking the earth with concussions and assaulting the
heavens with blinding flashes, as the stream of shells from the larger
caliber of the forest of guns passed over the streams from the smaller
caliber, it seemed that all the Germans in the front line must be
mashed into the earth. If the preliminary bombardment left any alive,
then that monstrous curtain of shell-bursts in front of the advancing
infantry, and the trench mortar fire, and the sheets of machine-gun
bullets that increased the strength of the shield, must hold them
trussed to the earth until it passed over them and our men were upon
them.
So it was with the 2nd Division, where I followed up the advance.
With the seeming facility with which the easier hurdles are taken in
a steeple-chase, the wave of the 2nd had swept over the fragmentary
trenches of the Kriemhilde system beyond Sommerance, where the great
attacks of the 1st and the 82nd had died down, and our line had been
little changed by the general attack of October 14th, which had
mastered the Kriemhilde in the center. There were occasional enemy
shell-bursts in patches of woods and on obvious points, fired by German
guns, halting in retreat or before withdrawal from their old positions,
and occasional bullets cracked by from the left in the region of the
Bourgogne forest; but all this seemed only the venomous and hopeless
spite of a rearguard action that was breaking into a rout. Only at long
intervals did you see a prone, still figure in khaki on the earth; and
our wounded were not numerous. German prisoners were being rounded
up from bushes and gullies, and in gray files they were crossing the
fields to the rear, as the combings of a drive which was moving as fast
this time as the pencilings on the map of high ambition. Admired by the
Allies for our speed, we were showing it now in legs unlimbered and
free of the chains that had encompassed us for over a month.
[Illustration: MAP NO. 11
DIVISIONS IN THE THIRD STAGE OF THE MEUSE-ARGONNE BATTLE, OCTOBER
31ST-NOVEMBER 11TH.]
It had ceased to be a battle on the way to Bayonville-et-Chennery. It
was a march, a joyous march of victory, more appealing than any city
parade, you may be sure. Our guns and transport were coming along roads
which were free of any except a rare vagrant shell-burst. Indeed,
everything in the 2nd's sector was going according to schedule. It
was good to be with the 2nd, as I had learned in June and July in the
Château-Thierry operations. One stopped and watched for the figures
ahead to appear in their mobile swiftness in open spaces, as they came
out of woods and ravines. One knew by instinct that we were going over
the heights and down the apron this time. The weather was with us, too.
After the long period of chill rains and hardships, a kindly sunshine
filtered through the leaden sky. There had been more thrilling days in
the war, thrilling with triumph and apprehension for me: when I was in
Brussels, before the German avalanche arrived; when I saw the British
battle fleet go out to sea; when I saw the French driving the Germans
back in the first battle of the Marne; when I saw the British and
French in their retreat before the German offensives of 1918; when I
saw our first contingent land in France. But the crowning day was the
one which brought forth the confession of the German communiqué that we
had broken the German line.
This is not saying, though the Fifth Corps in the center reached
its objectives, except for a few hundred yards at some points, that
everything in the schedule went without a hitch along the whole front.
Our movement was fan-shaped, swinging toward the loop of the Meuse in
its bend westward. The center of gravity, as I understood the plan, was
to pass from the Fifth Corps to the First on the left, whose flank was
on the Bourgogne forest, with an intricate tactical problem to solve in
scalloping and flank maneuvers. Here we met severe resistance from the
Germans, who were still inclined to hold their bastion. Though the 78th
had pounded its old enemy, the Loges Wood, with shells of big calibers
from heavy American and French batteries assigned to it, the Germans
still clung to their machine-guns; and though the Bourgogne Wood was
thoroughly gassed, it poured in a strong flanking fire, and even sent
out one counter-attack. The 77th was checked by heavy casualties in its
effort to storm Champigneulle. The 80th, also fresh and impetuously
determined to let nothing stop it, found the Germans showing their old
form in defending woods and hills, and had to repeat their attacks and
repulse counter-attacks; for our left, which had the longest swing to
make, was delayed, while our center, taking over the center of gravity
as the result of its advance, had gone ahead for four and five miles.
The Rainbows of the 42nd, in reserve with the First Corps, were
fractious. Weren't they in sight of the rainbow's end of their year
in France? Let them in, and they would take it. Fine troops the 78th,
77th, and 80th, no doubt, thought the Rainbows, but the 42nd was
the 42nd, and belonged to a class by itself for this kind of work.
The three divisions of the First Corps were not offering iridescent
travelers in the rear a holiday on the path they had blazed. They were
about to enjoy it themselves.
The enemy was making his stand on the left to prevent our wholesale
capture of prisoners, when he found that the combined movement of the
French and American armies would put him into a trap; but the next day
he was out of the Loges Wood and Champigneulle, and retreating through
the Bourgogne forest. All three divisions took up the pursuit, to make
up for lost time--and catch up with the procession. They were to show
that they could move fast, too. On the 2nd they made four and five
miles, and on the 3rd they kept up the same gait, which was a marvelous
performance in deployment and contact and endurance.
The Fifth Corps in the center faced the final heights of the
whale-back, the Barricourt crest. For its support it had an
overwhelming concentration of artillery fire, which Summerall, the
gunner, required in order to keep his word to "go through." Lejeune's
race-horse 2nd surpassed its own record for speed, as we have seen.
Not only did it take its own objectives, but it was called on to send
support elements over to assist the left. It was glad to send support
elements anywhere, if they filled a gap which the 1st might have filled.
The 89th, the other division of the Fifth Corps, was thrown head on
against the Barricourt heights. Wright had been among his officers and
men, making them feel that all the Mississippi valley was calling on
them for all there was in them in this attack. They might have been
gassed and mired in the Bantheville Wood, they might be tired; but
their great day had come. They were "going through." The Stokes mortars
kept up with the assault waves, even dragging wagons of ammunition with
them; a brigade of artillery was following up the infantry two hours
after the attack began. Prodigious effort had a road through the mire
of Bantheville Wood by 10.30 in the morning, with all the divisional
transport moving up. No less than those hard-shell veterans of the 2nd,
the 89th went ahead from the start in the conviction that success was
certain. Before that day was over they ran into nests of machine-guns
which ordinarily ought to have repulsed the most gallant charge, but
the waves of infantry, with supports fast on their heels, had tasted
victory in its intoxicating depths, and they overcame every obstacle.
That night the Barricourt ridge was ours; when the Germans stated that
their line was broken, it meant that we had broken German resistance on
the whale-back. The way was open to the Meuse, and Germans in front of
the First Corps had better make the most of the darkness of the night
of the 1st for retreat.
As the two divisions of the Fifth Corps, the 2nd and the 89th, in the
pell-mell rush to get the final crest, which was of such decisive
importance in the strategic plan, had become extended, the shorter
advances required of them during the next two days, which included some
stout, if uneven, resistance, by the Germans, allowed them time to get
transport in order and bring up more artillery. Those old hounds of the
1st, with their mouths watering, were moving as close up to the front
as their schedule would permit, and straining at the leash. The 89th,
having had such a grueling time in going over the ridge, and such
hard marching after the exhaustion of cleaning up Bantheville Wood,
might be considered nominally expended, if not in fact. When the Fifth
Corps gave an order that the 1st take over the 89th's place, General
Wright objected. Take out his Kansans and Missourians! They were only
getting their second wind. They were coming as strong as a flood on the
Missouri. The order was revoked; a second one later was scotched by
the same effective protest. Meanwhile the General was up at the front,
urging on his tired men with the persuasive argument of the Corps
threat. So the 89th was to remain in until the finish, while the 1st,
licking its chops and panting, swinging this way and that, was begging:
"Just give us one bite!"
Prospects were no better for the 32nd, in reserve with the Third Corps
on the right. Everybody could not be in this battle; the 5th and the
90th were willing that the Arrows should study the ground they had
won, but they might not participate in winning more. Ely's and Allen's
men were preoccupied with that undertaking themselves, and too busy to
look after tourist parties. Whereat the Arrows sharpened their points
in impatience, as they pried forward, and tightened their bowstrings,
ready for a flight if they could draw the bows which, if they had the
chance, would show the divisions in front the character of veteran
skill.
If the Fifth Corps took its objectives, you might be certain that
General Hines of the Third Corps on the right would take his, and
maintain his reputation for brevity by reporting the fact with no
more embellishment than a ship's log. If he had written Cæsar's
commentaries, they would have been compressed into one chapter. The
former commander of the bull-dog 4th Division, who had been on the
Meuse flank under the cross artillery fire from September 26th, knew
his ground. As the Third Corps had its flank on the Meuse and was to
swing in toward the river bank, it had the shortest advance of the
three corps to make.
The Texans of the 90th, on the left of his Corps, had been fretting for
a week in face of the Freya Stellung and the Andevanne ridge, which
they were now to take. In one of his trips about the front, General
Allen had had his artillery commander killed at his side by a shell.
His Texans were the kind that would carry out his careful plans for the
attack. Barrages were cleverly arranged; machine-gunners put on high
points for covering fire. On the 1st the Texans made short work of the
Freya Stellung, reaching their objectives at every point, and eager to
go ahead. The Germans put in a first-class division against the Texans
on the night of the 2nd; but that did not make any difference. It was
a furious give and take at some points, but on the night of the 2nd
they had Villers-devant-Dun and Hill 212. The next day, in face of only
desultory shelling, it was a matter of tireless maneuver and scattered
fighting, with the worst punishment from low-flying German planes,
raking our lines with machine-gun bullets. That night the 90th was
organizing on the Halles ridge, preparatory to striking for the river
bank.
The 5th, the right division of the Third Corps, as it pivoted on
the Meuse bank, had patrols studying the river for a crossing at
Brieulles and beyond on November 1st. The next morning its left entered
Cléry-le-Petit, a mile farther down the river from Brieulles, and
cleaned up the horseshoe bluff known as the Punch-bowl. Now we had word
that the Fourth French Army, on the west, and our First Corps, on the
east, of the Bourgogne forest, in their rapid pursuit were out of touch
with the enemy. This prompted energetic measures by the 5th in crossing
the river, which General Ely was to apply in dashing initiative that
will hold our attention later.
By this time on that shell-cursed western slope of the Meuse where many
of our divisions had fought under the cross-fire from the galleries,
there was only an occasional burst. Apart from the taking of the
whale-back, there was another reason--the action east of the Meuse,
where our divisions, coöperating with the French, had sprung to the
attack on the morning of November 1st no less energetically than on
the main battlefield. The Yankees of the 26th, as the only National
Guard division then in the front line, sharing the freshened confidence
of the hour, put the survivors of all four regiments in line, their
sector being now farther south, over the ridges and through the woods
north of Verdun, where they were hampered by bad roads and mud, which
was to give them a part in keeping with their record in the last acts
of the drama. The 79th was making a maneuver up the slopes of the bowl
which called for initiative and consummate tactical resourcefulness.
Kuhn, who had formed the division and led it, knew his men. There
was nothing they would not attempt. He knew his enemy, too. A great
honor had come to the 79th, the honor of storming the Borne de
Cornouiller, or Hill 378, the highest of all the hills we took in the
battle,--"corned willy," as the soldiers fighting for it on cold corned
beef called it.
There was no rapid pursuit for them, but wicked uphill work all the
way, in three days of repeated charges. Starting from the Molleville
farm clearing, they had to ascend the steep, wooded slopes of the
Etraye and Grande Montagne ridges, and struggle down one side and
up the other of that deadly Vaux de Mille Mais and other ravines,
before they were in sight of the Borne. The German grew bitter in his
resistance at the thought of having to yield this favorite height,
which had given his observers a far-flung view, and his artillery
cover to swing the volume of fire into the flank of our Third Corps.
The Borne was a bald and gently rounded ridge, with the undulating
plateau-like crest, facing the bare and steep slope which the 79th
had to ascend, peculiarly favorable for machine-gun defense in front,
while along the bordering road to the west, in the edge of the Grande
Montagne Wood, machine-guns could sweep in flank the road and the whole
slope. Piles of cartridge cases which had been emptied into our waves
were silent witnesses of the fire the assaults of the 79th had endured
when every khaki figure was exposed on the blue sky-line, a pitilessly
distinct silhouette at close range.
Checked at this point and that, taking advantage of each fresh gain
in gathering their strength for another effort, the men of the 79th
kept on until they had worked their way through the woods and finally
overrun the crest. There in their triumph, as they looked far across
the Meuse over the hills and ridges and patches of woods, they might
see the very heights of the whale-back which had been their goal when
they charged down the valley of Montfaucon on September 26th in their
baptism of fire. That Borne was the crowning point of those frowning
hills and ridges east of the Meuse, which bullet-headed Prussian staff
officers, who dreamed of fighting to the last ditch, had foreseen as
a line of impregnable defense on French soil, which should become as
horrible a shambles as their neighbors, the hills of Verdun. They had
a new and inexpressibly grateful relation now to the vineyards of
France, her well-tilled fields, her flower gardens of the Riviera,
and the security of the whole world--for everywhere the bullet-headed
Prussian officer was becoming the protesting flotsam in the midst of
a breaking army which he could not control. The 79th had gone as far
as it was wanted to go in following north the course of the Meuse in
that movement begun on October 8th when the 33rd crossed the Meuse and
advanced on the flank of the 29th toward the Borne.
Now another division, the 5th, was to cross the Meuse. The Meuse
bottoms were broad, as I have hitherto noted, and swampy in places
under the heavy rains, and required that the Meuse canal as well as the
river should be bridged. There were many points on the river bottoms
as well as on the hills on the east bank where machine-gunners might
hide. German units still being urged to stand felt the appeal to their
skill of such an advantage of position; their commanders the value
of holding all the Meuse heights they could to assist the retreat of
the Germans on the west. The 5th, despite its daring efforts, was
not to achieve a crossing until the 90th on its left had finished
its longer swing. On the night of the 3rd our Third Corps measured
eight miles of front on the river bank. For the 5th and the other
divisions, as their fan-shaped movement toward the bend brought each
in turn to the river, it was a case of patrols finding openings by
night between the tornadoes of machine-gun fire, where the engineers
might do the building under the protection of our artillery. Material
for the bridges had to be found or brought from the rear. In this our
initiative and resourcefulness were at their best.
At dark on the night of the 3rd the attempts began. The engineers
went to their hazardous task of working under fire, which is harder
than shooting back at your enemy. They stealthily managed to put a
footbridge across the river, but when they started to build another
across the canal, they met a hurricane of machine-gun and rifle fire,
while the German guns concentrating upon them forced their retirement.
The engineers are a patient and tireless lot, who can wait until a
burst of fire has died down and then start work again. By 2 A.M. they
had two footbridges across the canal. When a small column of infantry
tried to cross, they were blown back by the enemy, who had evidently
been watching for the target to appear. The infantry dug in between
the canal and the river. This much was gained at all events.
At 9.30 the next morning came a message from the Corps, directing that
"the crossing will be effected regardless of loss, as the movement of
the entire Army depends upon this crossing, and it must be done at
once."
There was nothing to do, then, but cross or die in the effort,
without waiting for darkness. All available artillery was asked to
pound the east bank of the Meuse until eight in the evening. At four
in the afternoon the 5th started to lay a pontoon bridge across at
Cléry-le-Petit, where the river was 110 feet wide and 10 feet deep. The
pontoons were not blown up by shell-fire quite as fast as they were
put in the water. Therefore the bridge was finally completed. Under
a barrage of artillery fire two battalions made a rush to cross the
bridge. The German artillery began tearing them to pieces at the same
time that it was tearing the bridge to pieces.
Happily the 5th was not putting all its eggs in one basket. At 6.20
another party, without any artillery preparation, succeeded in crossing
the canal as well as the river at Brieulles, and once on the other
side would not be budged from maintaining their narrow bridgehead in
face of the plunging fire from the heights. Just below Brieulles,
another battalion, which was also favored, no doubt, by the German
attention being drawn to the fragile targets of the pontoons, in the
most unostentatious but expeditious manner got across by using rafts,
duckboards, poles, and ropes, and by swimming. The water of the river
was bitter cold, but we were winning the war, and every soldier in the
Meuse-Argonne was used to being wet by rain. This sopping battalion
made a lodgment in Chatillon Wood, and kept warm during the night by
cleaning the Germans out of it.
It appeared at midnight that the whole division would have to swing
round to cross the river by way of Brieulles; but before morning the
left brigade, on the north, put pontoons over successfully during the
night, and crossed a battalion; for the Aces of the 5th had taken the
Corps order to heart. Never let it be said that the 5th was holding up
the entire Army--if it really were. General Hines was a very taciturn
man, as I have remarked; and the Army staff had studied foreign methods
in propaganda.
By 8 A.M. there were artillery bridges over the Meuse at Brieulles.
Such speed as this ought to be encouraged by calling for more speed.
Two brigades had detachments across the river. The next thing was to
join up the bridgeheads and take Dun-sur-Meuse, and this immediately.
General Ely, of square jaw and twinkling blue eyes, did not care who
took it, so it was taken.
"Take Dun-sur-Meuse and the hill north of 292, and from there go to the
east," he told one brigade. "Do not wait for the other brigade. Keep
pushing up with that one battalion, and take that place."
"Keep shoving your battalions through," he told the other brigade.
"Don't stop, but go through Dun. Take the shelling, and take the
machine-gun fire, and push things along. You are to go to Dun unless
the other fellow gets there first."
Thus Dun and the heights were taken that day, and the 5th fully
established on the east bank of the Meuse. It was an accomplishment
admirable in courage and skill.
The spirit of rivalry shown by the battalions rushing for Dun was
that of all the divisions sweeping down the apron of the reverse
slopes of the whale-back toward the river. This apron was not a
smooth descent, but undulating, broken by hills, ravines, and woods,
where machine-gunners could take cover and force deployment. In many
instances advancing was no mere maneuver. The 89th ran into strong
opposition on the heights overlooking the Meuse, and in common with
all other divisions could not answer the enemy artillery, as we did
not want to fire into the inhabited villages on the other bank. The
2nd met strong resistance on the 4th, which required organizing a
regular attack; but, of course, it went through. Lejeune was not a man
to consider any other result, or his men inclined to waste time when
the 1st Division was waiting in the rear to take the 2nd's place if it
so much as stubbed its toe. As we know, on critical occasions, the 2nd
did not worry about casualties. Its casualty list, whose total was the
heaviest of any division in France, for the final drive was over four
thousand.
Enemy resistance varied with the mood of individual units. A few
answered the professional call and the call of fatalism not to miss
an opportunity to turn their machine-guns upon our advancing troops.
Others asked only to escape or to surrender. The harder we pressed,
the larger would be this class. Our own mood was that of the soldier
who has his enemy in flight. Every blow was another argument for an
armistice, and a further assurance of an early passage home. The
elation of the chase eliminated the sense of fatigue. Abandoned guns,
rifles, bombs, trench mortars, worn-out automobiles and trucks, all
the stage properties of retreat were in the wake of that German army
whose mighty organization had held the world in a fearful awe. We
were passing through a region where houses were intact and only a
few shells had fallen in the course of our advance. Villagers in a
wondering delirium of joy were watching the groups of German prisoners,
too weary for any emotion except a sense of relief, of officers with
long faces and a glazed, despairing look in their eyes, officers who
were indifferent, and occasional ones in whom the defiance of Prussian
militarism still bore itself in ineffectual superciliousness; and
watching these strange Americans going and coming on their errands, and
the passage of our troops, guns, and transport in an urgent procession
which thought of nothing except getting ahead.
The Commander-in-Chief having on the 5th directly urged all possible
speed on the left toward the Meuse at Sedan, which was of course the
farthest objective from our starting-point, those mouth-watering
veteran hounds in reserve of the First and Fifth Corps at last had
their leashes removed, and joined the pack in full cry. Taking the
place of the 78th, the men of the 42nd knew now that there was a
rainbow's end, and they meant that it should go to none other than the
Rainbow Division. March is hardly the word for their speed; gallop is a
better one. On the 8th they had reached Wadelincourt, a suburb across
the river from Sedan, in their wonderful dash. Their Rainbow ambition
having considered all northern France as their objective, they found
that they were out of the American sector, and accordingly must be
"side-slipped." The French took Sedan. There was historical fitness in
the French poilus, in their faded blue, being the first troops to enter
that town, where a French disaster, due to a travesty of imperial
leadership, had glorified the Hohenzollern dynasty, which was now a
travesty with its armies in dissolution.
The 1st, swinging over to the left but still remaining with the Fifth
Corps, had a long march before reaching the front of the 80th, which it
relieved. When it received the word to go, it developed a speed which
was sufficient reason for its being in at the finish, without depending
upon its record in previous actions. Our pioneer veterans had two days
and two nights in line, advancing ten miles. Then they were "squeezed
out" by the "side-slipping" of the 42nd from before Sedan. From the
morning of November 5th, when the call came to them, until midnight of
November 7th-8th, their units had fought for forty-eight hours, and
marched from thirty to forty-five miles. Will the race-horse 2nd please
take note of this?
If the Arrows of the 32nd, the third of the veteran divisions in
reserve, had had to go home without being in the final drive, when the
42nd was in it, our army staff would have been even more unpopular than
it was. They, too, had this chance. As the Third Corps' front broadened
with its advance over the heights on the other side of the river they
took over a portion of the sector of the 15th French Colonials, where
they were driving the enemy in most uncivil fashion when the flag fell.
The Texans of the 90th had to swing their right flank to the river
bank in _liaison_ with the flank of the 5th, and keep firm _liaison_
with the 89th on their left. They faced very resolute fire from the
other bank in their bridge-building, which had to be done under most
troublesome conditions after some expensive reconnoitering, in which
the Texans did not allow artillery or machine-gun fire to interfere
with their pioneering audacity. On the 9th they had orders to cross.
That night they went over their new bridge under a pitiless fire. While
one detachment went into Stenay, which lies under a bluff, where it had
a busy time in cleaning up the town, the other detachment pressed on
into Baalon Wood.
Meanwhile the Kansans and Missourians of the 89th had been preparing,
at the same time with the 2nd of the Fifth Corps, to cross and take
the heights of Inor. As soon as their outposts reached the bank,
their patrols had begun swimming the river under machine-gun fire.
They were assigned some German pontoons, which they transformed into
rafts. The first was rowed across; the others were pulled across with
ropes. Seventy-five men being crowded on each raft, they put one whole
battalion on the opposite bank while footbridges were being smashed
by the enemy artillery as fast as the engineers could build them.
The battalion, having taken over a hundred prisoners, pressed on to
Autreville. It goes without saying that the 2nd had also effected a
crossing--and under equally trying conditions.
Every battalion over the Meuse, every rod of ground gained, was
considered a further argument for the Germans to accept the terms of
the armistice now in their hands. Until the word to cease fire came,
the Army would go on fighting; at dawn on the 11th, when the German
delegates were signing their names on Marshal Foch's train our Second
Army, weak in numbers and strong in heart, began carrying out the
orders that had been planned in the Saint-Mihiel sector, where several
of our veteran divisions had been resting after being expended in the
Meuse-Argonne, and we had the 7th and 88th among our new divisions.
On the right was the 92nd, colored, National Army, nearest of all our
troops to the former German frontier, who were the first to cross it,
I understand, in their successful charge. To say that the 28th and the
33rd were also in the action is sufficient. They were going ahead,
and the German infantry was resisting with machine-gun fire which
caused numerous casualties, and the German artillery was responding
with a heavy bombardment at some points, when word was flashed through
from Marshal Foch to our General Headquarters, and through to the
Second Army, and out to the regiments and battalions, that at 11 A.M.
hostilities would cease.
The Second Army advance was immediately stopped. Everywhere east of
the Meuse our troops were advancing on the morning of the 11th. The
81st was engaged on the flank of the veteran 26th, which had been
ceaselessly pushing the enemy over the hills since November 1st,
and was now approaching the plain. The 79th, after taking the Borne
de Cornouiller, had faced round in a rapid and brilliant maneuver,
pressing over the rim of the bowl from the Grande Montagne and from
Belleu Wood, in whose fox-holes three of our divisions had suffered,
and moving down into the plain had taken Damvillers, and was now
storming the last of the three hills between its line and the plain
of the Woëvre. The men were wrathful at being stopped. They wanted to
finish the job: to take the last of the hills.
At many points where our infantry units were far beyond our
communications and infiltrating around hills and through woods, it took
some time to reach the rapidly moving advance detachments with the news
that they were to cease firing and go no farther. Particularly was
this true in front of the Fifth Corps, whose skirmishers, having just
crossed the river, were taking the bit in their teeth. A few elements
were still engaging the German rearguard at eleven, unaware that the
war was over, while on all the remainder of the front from Switzerland
to Holland there was silence for the first time in four years--and the
mills of hell had ceased grinding.
Two of the divisions which had been in line on the first day of the
Meuse-Argonne battle were in line on the last. Two others which had
helped break the old trench system on September 26th, the 37th and the
91st, were to see the finish far from our army family, on the plains
of Belgium. Isolated in an odd Flemish world of level fields broken by
canals, the two were attached to different French corps in that Allied
force of British and French and Belgians under the Belgian King, and
under the direct command of General Degoutte, which had disengaged
Ypres, recovered Ostend, Bruges, Roulers, and Courtrai, when on October
31st our men joined in that tide of victory which was soon to flow into
Brussels itself. In three days they made eight miles against irregular
rearguard action. In taking the low ridge commanding the Scheldt, they
were under a heavy artillery reaction of the Germans in protecting the
retreat across the river. The Ohioans on November 2nd, in face of the
concentrations of gun-fire, were able to slip small detachments across
on bridges improvised from tree-trunks and timbers taken from shattered
houses, and eventually, that night, to pass over several battalions
on a temporary footbridge; the 91st and the French divisions were
unsuccessful in reaching the other bank except by this one bridge. The
Pacific Coast men, with their usual intrepidity, were planning to swim
the river, but after three days of continued advance, which included
the capture of the large town of Audenarde, they and the Ohioans were
given a rest by the corps commands. On the 10th they were put in line
again, but they did not overtake the line pursuing the retreating enemy
before his capitulation.
Some American units, besides the 27th and 30th Divisions with the
British, had been isolated from the first from the American family.
American hospitals in base towns on both the British and French fronts
were an evidence, from the days of our neutrality, of that work of
war which knows no national allegiance. Volunteer ambulance sections,
maintaining the traditions of the American Field Service, continued to
the end to serve with French divisions; and indeed, many of the former
volunteers who had preferred to prepare for commissions in the French
army might be come upon unexpectedly in the horizon blue uniform.
Engineer troops for which our Allies had made an early request might
be buried in obscure parts of the front, to come to light only in the
shadow of an emergency which, as at Cambrai and in the German March
offensive, turned engineer troops into combatants; or again, as our
own demands grew, to return to our own fold. Air squadrons, as well
as individual aviators, served in valiant anonymity on Allied fronts,
in many cases never seeing the American front, which yet wanted for
aviation. So wide was the dispersion of Americans throughout France
that it is safe to say that hardly a single commune of the country
has gone without sight of the soldier from overseas. In due time the
far-flung legions would all have come home to an integral army; but the
problem of keeping in touch with units which believed themselves lost
to the sight of their comrades was not a simple one, and yet a problem
that must be faced. How was the motor park, isolated in French barracks
at Epinal, or the forestry unit in the Jura or the Pyrenees, to be
assured that somewhere in the inner circles of hierarchy its faithful
service was being noted and appreciated?
Most isolated of all, though they received due meed of honor from the
French with whom they served, were certain colored regiments. Recruited
from various National Guard organizations in northern States, they had
arrived in a training area in France after a usual period of service
as labor troops in the S. O. S., and were formed into a provisional
93rd Division, which was not, however, to be assembled. In the spring
the regiments were assigned to various French divisions for trench
service, at the request of the French staff, which had developed
long experience with colored troops in many African campaigns. For
this service the Americans were equipped throughout with French
mustard-colored khaki uniforms, French rifles, packs, gas masks, and
helmets, which still further accentuated their isolation. The varying
fortunes of trench warfare in the Argonne and about Saint-Mihiel
seasoned their experience for a due part in the repulse of the last
German offensive, and in the offensive begun by General Gouraud's
army west of the Argonne, at the same time with our attack to the
east. Withdrawn with their divisions after a few days of advance which
counted them as "expended," the regiments were sent to recuperate in
the Vosges, whence they started on the short march to the Rhine after
the armistice.
We know how, in framing the armistice terms, as one after another
strong demand was included, an apprehension developed in certain Allied
quarters lest the Germans, with such a large army still in being, might
become desperate and continue the war. When one read the terms, which
surrendered the German navy and placed us in command of the Rhine
bridgeheads, he knew how deep the two-edged sword had cut, and that
the Allies had power in their hands to force complete submission to
their will. It was a skillful and wise peace, bringing an end to the
bloodshed and the agony.
Only those who considered it to their honor or their profit could
have wished to fight all the way to Berlin. The thought in the mind
of every soldier was: "I still live; I shall not have to go under
fire again;" in the mind of every relative of a soldier: "He is still
alive." Through all the celebrations to come, it was a thought dominant
in subconsciousness, if not publicly expressed. To some of our own
newcomers, perhaps, who had not yet been in action, there was human
disappointment that they had arrived too late; though our veterans
and the war-weary veterans of our Allies might tell them that they
were fortunate in what they had escaped. Perhaps, too, certain of our
officers, who had worked toward the vision of the spring campaign, when
our recuperated divisions would be supported by the enormous quantity
of munitions from home, and all our branches would be fully equipped,
may have felt that they had been robbed of professional fulfillment.
Not until spring would we have been able to undertake another offensive
against determined resistance. On November 11th we had only two fresh
divisions in reserve; we were depending upon green replacements, and
our hospitals were full. If we had come late into the war, we had given
the full measure of our strength in the final stage.
The forming of the new Third Army of Occupation under Major-General
Joseph T. Dickman, drawn from our veteran divisions in a favorable
position for the movement, and its long tour of police duty, is no more
in the province of this book than the many journeys which the author
made after the armistice: up and down the Rhine; into Brussels, to see
the people welcome back their King; over the Ypres, the Somme, and the
Verdun battlefields, as well as our own; along roads which had been
for four years in sound of the guns, now silent; among our camps where
our soldiers in the dreary, long, cold nights were impatiently marking
time until their homegoing; through the Services of Supply, where I
saw that vast machine we had built reversed, to the ports, where the
tide of our soldiery was flowing outward instead of inward--the thought
ever uppermost being that humanity might learn from this most monstrous
example of war's folly how to avoid its repetition. [Blank Page]