AMERICA OVER THE TOP
The first direct attack on the German lines made by American forces in
the Lorraine sector took place on the night of March 9, 1918, with the
cooperation of the French. Two raids were made. The troops engaged were
ordered to cut off the two ends of a salient in the German line, flatten
out the salient by artillery fire, enter the trenches, bomb the dugouts,
sweep the trenches generally, and return.
Intense artillery fire, lasting four hours, leveled the German
positions before the Franco-American troops advanced. They were divided
into two forces, with small French detachments flanking each, and went
forward at midnight behind a creeping barrage, each on a front of six
hundred yards. Starting simultaneously, one advanced northwest of the
salient, the other to the northeast. On the German first lines being
reached, the barrage was lifted so as to box in the enemy positions at
both points.
The troops dropped into the trenches, expecting a hand-to-hand fight,
but found that the Germans had fled. Continuing, they reached the second
German line six hundred yards farther on while American machine guns
fired on each flank of the two parties to check flanking operations by
the enemy.
The yield in prisoners was poor, the Germans having decamped. One French
flanking party found two wounded Germans. The Americans found none. But
they blew up a number of excellent concrete dugouts and returned with
large quantities of material and valuable papers. While they were in the
vacated German lines, enemy artillery began a vigorous counterbarrage,
but it was quickly silenced by gas shells hurled by American heavy and
light guns.
The raid was followed by a second on another part of the line,
undertaken without the aid of the French. A preliminary bombardment
swept the Germans' front trenches, tearing gaps in their barbed-wire
entanglements, and wrought other destruction. The German batteries came
into action, but accomplished nothing to halt the American progress.
Entering the German trenches behind one side of a "box" barrage, which
moved forward in front of them, they found numerous Germans hiding in
the dugouts. Hand-to-hand fighting followed, the Americans using their
automatic pistols and rifles. They penetrated 300 yards of the enemy
line, going beyond their objective. More fighting developed, but the
Germans were not equal to the assault and fled, leaving a number of dead
and wounded in their trenches. The Americans fought so fast in
effecting their object that the army doctors who accompanied them had
little to do. They returned to their own lines without being impeded by
a single German shell, and without fatalities. It was all over so
quickly that the German batteries had no chance to get into real action.
It was just a fifteen-minute adventure undertaken by way of feeling
their way in testing their capacity to give the Germans a taste of their
own medicine.
Following these engagements, the actual locality of which was not
disclosed, American forces were reported to be very active in aggressive
operations in the neighborhood of Lunéville, a town east of the Toul
sector. This information revealed an extension of the American positions
in Lorraine and an augmentation of forces that made the new sector one
of the most active on the front. It appeared that the two simultaneous
raids mentioned took place in this vicinity, northwest and northeast of
Badonviller. The trenches evacuated by the Germans were occupied by the
Americans, who consolidated them with their own lines. This forward
movement, though a small one, marked the first permanent advance by the
American army in France, and enabled the Americans and French to operate
from higher ground than heretofore. The Germans made only feeble
attempts to retake the position, and each time were repulsed. The
parapets were turned toward the enemy, dugout entrances were changed,
and new dugouts built to protect the troops. An exploring patrol
examined the trenches, proceeding laterally until they established
contact with the enemy. They came upon snipers' posts, listening posts,
and nests from which machine guns had been firing into the American
lines. These ambushes of the enemy were turned over to the tender
mercies of the American batteries, which wiped them out. The positions
of the Germans were made so uncomfortable at various points that they
tried to regain their lost foothold by connecting shell holes. Their
guns pounded the new American positions with heavy shells, some of the
twelve-inch type, without affecting the Franco-American consolidation.
A German battery of mine throwers, one of which had made a direct hit on
a dugout occupied by American soldiers, next received the earnest
attention of American guns in the Lunéville sector. The battery had
been causing considerable trouble. It was finally located, and upon it
high-explosive shells were concentrated. It was blown up.
More German trenches in the Lunéville sector were destroyed. The enemy
vacated them. When a patrol, without assistance from the artillery,
crossed no-man's-land, they found the first and second positions wiped
out. The patrol obtained further information and returned without
casualties, the Germans apparently not daring to molest them. The
indications behind the German lines were that they saw the need of
constructing stronger earthworks to withstand the American fire. A
patrol ascertained that the enemy had constructed trenches built of
concrete half way up the side, and was using rock crushers and concrete
mixers for building a number of "pill-boxes" opposite the American
front.
Meantime the foe gave renewed attention to the Toul sector. One new form
of attack came from a German aeroplane, which dropped rubber balls
filled with liquefied "mustard" gas. The effect of these novel air
missiles was not serious. The gas merely infuriated the troops, and when
the Germans heavily attacked the American positions with shell fire, gas
shells were hurled at the enemy from American batteries. Four gas
attacks ware launched at the Germans, whose guns were presently
silenced.
The Germans later responded by concentrating a heavy gas attack on a
town behind the American lines. No wind was blowing and the fumes of the
"mustard" gas from the shells hung low over the lines for a long time.
The batteries firing the gas shells were located and the American
gunners retaliated with doses of gas twice as large as the American
positions received. In fact, two towns held by the Germans were so
heavily gassed that one of them, Réchicourt, north of Xivray, one of the
American targets, was abandoned.
German snipers in this sector were also a constant worry to the
Americans. As fast as one nest was silenced, another was found, and the
task of wiping out the nuisance had to be repeated. In one instance, a
group of American snipers discovered an enemy nest close by and
promptly opened fire on it. The Germans replied with their rifles, and
then fired about three dozen or so of grenades. Apparently the Germans
had come to stay and did not intend to be chased out. One of the
American 37-millimeter gun teams then got into action against the nest,
and owing to its accurate fire no more Germans were seen at this
particular point. The Germans were frequently presented with examples of
the accuracy of the fire of these 37-millimeter guns. An enemy
machine-gun emplacement which had been annoying the Americans was
located and then the battery of "little fellows," as the guns were known
along the front, got into action, firing rapidly. They secured a number
of direct hits and destroyed the emplacement guns.
These small guns, which are about the size of a one-pounder, were easily
moved from place to place even in the trenches. They also secured direct
hits on the junction of communication trenches as men were passing, and
into the entrance of the dugout which a number of the enemy were seen to
enter and from which smoke was issuing. None of the enemy was seen to
come out.
In April the Germans attempted an ambitious local operation against the
Americans northwest of Toul. They planned to enter the third line
positions, it was subsequently learned, and for this purpose they sent a
special battalion of 800 shock troops equipped with wire, dynamite,
intrenching tools and other implements for adapting trenches to their
own use. The attack was preceded by a violent bombardment of the
American positions, lasting three days. Hundreds of shells fell, many of
them charged with gas. At sunrise on April 10 the German infantrymen
signaled their batteries for a barrage, and under it they started out
for the American line. They were selected from the best men of three
regiments and were preceded by shock platoons. The American gunners did
not wait for any rocket signal from their own side before getting into
action. They immediately started a counterbarrage, which caught the
advancing Germans before they could reach the American wire
entanglements. The German officers sent their troops through the
answering barrage, with the result that fewer than 200 of the 800
troops succeeded in making any advance. Only two reached the American
line; both were captured and one died immediately after from wounds.
The fighting developed on no-man's-land. American outposts moved to the
first line and with other infantrymen and machine gunners waited for
those of the attackers who survived the American barrage. As the raiders
neared the Americans poured a deadly fire into them, then climbed out of
the trenches and engaged them with grenades and in hand-to-hand
fighting. The enemy was driven back to his own lines, suffering serious
casualties from American heavy machine-gun and rifle fire rained on his
men as they fled. No-man's-land was strewn with German dead; several
bodies hung on the barbed wire after the enemy retired; and numbers were
killed by American guns before they could leave the German trenches. The
fight lasted two hours in a heavy morning mist; but the American gunners
found their aim despite the poor visibility.
It was a crushing defeat, and two days later the Germans, smarting under
it, sought to avenge it by reorganizing the 800 shock troops, which were
filled out by picked men from other units, and ordering them to take the
American positions. As before a violent bombardment, accompanied by gas
shells, signalized the attack. The German guns kept up a harassing fire
all night, and with dawn came the infantry attack, directed against
French troops who flanked the American forces on the left in the forest
of Apremont. While this engagement was proceeding the Americans launched
a counterattack on the German line, moving forward behind a perfect
curtain fire. The enemy, driven out of his trenches, was forced to fight
in the open. A deadly machine-gun and automatic-rifle fire was poured
into the Germans, who offered stubborn resistance at first, but latter
retreated to their second line, hotly pursued by the American troops.
After an interim the Germans resumed the attack at a point farther to
the right. The American barrage fire cut them off, but the German
officers drove their men through the exploding shells until a few
succeeded in penetrating the American front line. A counterattack by the
Americans ejected the enemy, driving him back to his positions.
The struggle lasted throughout the day, and was the first all-day battle
in which the Americans had been engaged. Their loss was slight. They
lost no prisoners, but gained thirty-four of the enemy. The prisoners
taken belonged to six different organizations. Five were Uhlans, and all
were carrying haversacks well filled, as if in preparation for a
protracted stay in the American trenches, corroborating the stories told
by prisoners previously taken, who said that the Germans had been
ordered to penetrate the American third line at all costs.
Several deeds of individual heroism marked the engagement. In one case a
young lieutenant, with three men, attacked nineteen Germans who had
penetrated into one of the American trenches. The lieutenant called on
the Germans to surrender. One of them raised his pistol, as if to shoot,
but the lieutenant shot him through the head, upon which the others
lifted their hands high in the air and yelled "Kamerad." The lieutenant
marched the prisoners in to the rear and then returned to the front and
resumed the command of his platoon.
Five other Americans penetrated into a German dugout where twelve of the
enemy were slightly wounded. The Germans resisted surrender, but our men
threw grenades into the dugout, killing four of the foe. The others
quickly gave themselves up.
Despite their failure, the Germans the next day continued their efforts
to drive through to the American third line. An incessant artillery fire
blended with gas shells prefaced two bitter attacks both of which the
Americans withstood. In all, the enemy spent four days in trying to take
the Apremont position.
German activities against American forces were next heard of north of
St. Mihiel, where a new American sector, located on the right bank of
the Meuse, south of Verdun, was disclosed. The enemy's raid had the
usual characteristics. It was made by a force of 400 picked troops
brought from the Russian front, who outnumbered the Americans by more
than two to one. The Germans leaped from their trenches under their
barrage; the Americans did likewise; and there was a hand-to-hand affray
with grenade and bayonet. The upshot was a German casualty list of
sixty-four dead, many wounded, and twelve prisoners, and the hurling
back of the survivors to their own lines.
While these scattered local operations enlivened the various American
sectors, the great German spring offensive was proceeding against the
British and French well out of the established American zones. As that
offensive developed in its scope, less attention was paid to the
American lines east of Verdun, and save for the Seicheprey raid and the
clash at Xivray, both to be presently described, the operations there
were of little moment.
The usual little amenities of war went on between isolated groups of
combatants, mostly local scrimmages in which not more than a dozen or
twenty men participated. These took the customary form of patrol
actions, clashes between scouts, the uprooting of enemy's snipers' nests
and the occasional invasion of trenches by one or the other side. There
were ceaseless artillery duels, accompanied by clouds of gas, and daily
fatalities, not all of them due to actual warfare.
Here and there small engagements, by reason of a swinging, thoroughgoing
effectiveness on the part of the bands of Americans who shared in them,
stand out of the daily routine of the trench warfare. In one that took
place near Bremenil, east of Lunéville, in May, 1918, when a body of
Germans essayed to attack the American positions, solely to take
prisoners to ascertain the American strength, not a single German got
back who succeeded in entering the American trenches. A gas bombardment
led the attack, followed by a heavy barrage fire, under which fifty
German soldiers attempted to reach the American line; nine of the
fourteen raiders were killed outright, four were captured, and one died
of wounds. No American was captured.
While comparative quiet reigned in the St. Mihiel, Toul, and Lunéville
sectors, as the summer advanced, a further extension of American
sectors, eastward of these positions, running almost to the Swiss
border, became revealed in General Pershing's reports. American forces
were heard of at St. Dié, Mulhouse, Colmar, and near Belfort. With the
main German forces busily--and unsuccessfully--engaged on other parts of
the front, the Americans hereabout appear to pass uneventful days. The
German forces before them, barring their occasional liquid fire,
artillery outbreaks, air reconnoissances, and machine-gun activity, were
disposed to let well enough alone.
By July, 1918, Americans practically occupied the whole of the
Lorraine-Alsace front. Their positions gradually became disclosed and
may now be stated with some particularity as follows: First, east of St.
Mihiel; second, north of Lunéville; third, east and a little south of
Lunéville or north of Badonviller; fourth, near St. Dié; fifth, just
west of Gebweiler, which is just east of the battle line, and, sixth,
east of Belfort, near Altkirch. Roughly speaking, these positions were
about equally distant from one another and divided the entire front from
St. Mihiel to the Swiss border into sections averaging about twenty-five
miles each, over a front of approximately 150 miles. This became now the
distinctly American front, and extended approximately one-third of the
entire western front.
The United States, to all intents and purposes, had created an "Eastern
front" of her own in taking over the southeastern portion of what was
known as the western front. Here General Pershing's legions could drive
directly into Germany by the shortest route with the least cost in men
and material, and with the least delay.