CANTIGNY
Foretokens of a movement against Cantigny came in the middle of May,
1918, when a searching American artillery fire exploded a huge German
ammunition dump at that place and set a number of fires blazing behind
the German lines in Montdidier. Near the latter town the Germans later
drove a wedge into the American line in a retaliatory attack and stayed
there for four hours. The American counterthrust hurled them back; the
troops not only drove them across no-man's-land, but followed them into
their own second line and made a haul of prisoners. The Germans suffered
heavily in the fighting, which was of a hand-to-hand nature at times.
The bravery of the Americans may be illustrated by the case of a private
whose arm was blown off. Dazed, he kept on fighting, and did not know he
had been injured until a comrade came to his aid.
This attack, like those made on the Lorraine front, was an attempt to
push back new troops with the object of creating a feeling that they
formed a weak link in the defending chain. The next day, however, the
weak link stretched beyond its own line and essayed an assault on
Cantigny. The action, May 28, 1918, took place while huge German forces
elsewhere were in the swing of a drive southward through the Allied
lines between Noyon and Rheims, on a forty-mile front, and had overrun
the Chemin-des-Dames--throwing back the American forces there--and
crossed the Aisne.
The Cantigny exploit did not bulk large in the great battle that raged
from Ypres to Rheims; but it showed that, put on their mettle, the new
troops were first-class fighting men and a match for the Germans.
Amiens, in the neighborhood of which the enemy already had had a
foretaste of American valor, was only twenty miles away to the
northwest. To the American right the Germans were forging their way to
the Marne and creating the celebrated salient between Soissons and
Rheims. Away to the left the British and French had just checked the
second phase of the German advance between Ypres and Arras. Cantigny
brought a little consolation to the Allies, though only a
counterdiversion of small account, in the midst of the sweeping German
onslaught.
Just west of the village the Germans held a salient, which the Americans
determined to flatten out. An advance, on a front of a mile and a
quarter, was thereupon organized, involving the employment of a
considerable force, and undertaken under the eye of veteran French
officers, who made safeguarding dispositions of their own forces to
reenforce the Americans if necessary.
The customary artillery fire, augmented by French gunners, signalized
the attack, which began early in the morning. Aided by French tanks, the
Americans advanced through a mist and made the required distance of 600
yards in ten minutes under machine-gun fire. The tanks found their path
easy, the American guns having already prepared the way. In fact, their
fire smothered the Germans, whose resistance was so slight that the
Americans proceeded to penetrate their positions to a depth of nearly a
mile.
A strong unit of flame throwers and engineers aided the Americans.
Moving barrages preceded the infantry advance, which followed with
clockwork precision. There was some hand-to-hand fighting in the
streets, but the hard-hitting Americans, wielding grenade and bayonet,
managed to clear the enemy out of the village in three quarters of an
hour. A number of Germans had taken refuge in a large tunnel and a
number of caves, which formed part of the village fortifications, and
the Americans had to hurl grenades like baseballs into these shelters in
order to oust them. The Germans entombed in dugouts near by readily
trooped out and surrendered when they saw the futility of resistance. In
short, the garrison at Cantigny was soon accounted for; the men were
either all captured or killed at a slight cost to the Americans. It was
found that the Germans had honeycombed the village with outposts and
machine-gun emplacements.
The Americans had obtained high ground commanding a section of
plateaulike country. In straightening the salient they acquired
territory the length of their two-kilometer advance, as well as
Cantigny, and brought their line well east of the village.
The Germans attempted several counterattacks, persisting in them for
three days. They were met by hurricanes of fire. Waves of German
infantrymen were stopped dead or thrown back, leaving many of their
number killed or wounded on the ground. There were night bombardments,
air bombing, and even tank attacks in addition to fruitless advances of
troops. Foot soldiers and tanks alike recoiled before the stone-wall
resistance offered by the Americans, who did not budge an inch from the
position they occupied on taking Cantigny. On the contrary, in face of
continuous attempts to expel them, they consolidated their position, and
finally came a quiet day, telling that the Germans had abandoned their
efforts to retake the village. The attack and counterattacks yielded 242
prisoners to the Americans.
Berlin, recording the engagement on May 29, 1918, merely said:
"West of Montdidier the enemy during a local advance penetrated into
Cantigny yesterday."
General Pershing found occasion to comment thus on this announcement in
his report to the War Department:
"Attention is drawn to the fact that the German official communiqué of
May 29, afternoon, in reporting the capture of Cantigny avoids mention
of the fact that the operation was conducted by American troops. Recent
marked endeavors of the Germans to discount the fighting qualities of
our forces indicate that the enemy feared the moral effect of such
admission in Germany."