AROUND CHÂTEAU-THIERRY
Meantime, some distance to the left of this American sector at Cantigny,
the German thrust between Noyon and Rheims had cut across the Aisne,
took a westward turn and enveloped Soissons, proceeded south to the
Marne between Château-Thierry and Dormans on a six-mile front, and swung
a couple of miles along the Marne beyond Dormans. Their advance having
progressed thus far, the Germans on the Marne and on the west of the
salient they had formed in the Allied line found themselves facing
another American army.
The narrative of American operations in France thus turns from recording
local exploits such as that at Cantigny and the trench adventures that
marked the inconsequential warfare along the American sectors east of
St. Mihiel. It becomes merged in the story of major operations, with the
Americans in the thick of a great battle, fighting shoulder to shoulder
with the French on their left, and joined on their right by more French,
aided by British and Italian troops. American forces in great numbers
became a big factor in arresting the southward sweep of the Germans
across the Marne, and in checking a plunge westward, both operations
aiming at a triumphant march on Paris. Just as the Americans had aided
in stopping the Germans from reaching Amiens, a pivotal point in the
British lines, so did they save Paris. At the tail end of the third
phase of his descent on the French capital via the Marne, the German was
slowly beginning to realize that the despised Americans had become a
leading factor in the war.
There was an imperative call for American aid to reenforce the French
along the Marne and on the western side of the salient. They were rushed
from distant training areas, or from the quiet sectors in Lorraine and
Alsace or from the American positions round Cantigny and Montdidier and
about Amiens on the British front, and once on the scene they
immediately plunged into action to check the German drive. How one
American unit hastened to fill the breach and stem the Teutonic tide was
described by Junius B. Wood as typical of the expedition with which
other detachments moved into the battle zone:
"One evening at 7 o'clock orders came over the long-distance telephone
from headquarters to move. At 10 o'clock the same night camions were
rumbling up, and after all the men had found places, started toward the
fateful Marne. Before daylight they had crossed a goodly part of France
and reached the reserve areas. The camions started back, while soldiers
and officers stretched out along the roadside to snatch a few hours of
sleep. The next night they marched into the support positions. A few
more hours of sleep, and they went directly into the battle. In less
than twelve hours telephone wires were strung and communication
established in their territory. Every part of the organization from
commanding officers to privates were working perfectly. Supplies were
coming up over the roads in the rear. Ambulances were carrying back the
wounded, while the trucks which had carried up ammunition with which to
sow the seeds of death returned to aid refugees and thus helping to save
the living.
"Along the Paris road the dust hung like a fog over the companies
marching forward to take their turn at fighting and other companies
returning for a few hours of sleep. Out of the brown clouds dashed staff
motor cars and ambulances disregarding all speed laws. Trains of trucks
passed the horse-drawn batteries moving into position. Flashes and
ear-splitting crashes came from batteries put in position just far
enough off the roads to avoid the traffic. Men were cooking beside the
guns, and others, oblivious to the suffocating dust, were sleeping in
the midst of the noise and turmoil. All moved according to a
well-ordered system.
"While the guns were barking under the shade trees at the roadside
stolid ox teams with carts loaded with household possessions were moving
to the rear. It seemed as if the guns with their muzzles pointing the
other way were holding back the invaders until those fleeing fugitives
should again reach safety. Other batteries were hastily unlimbered in
fields and orchards where plows and harrows had been abandoned only a
few hours previously by the peaceful peasants."
The Americans entered the line in the midst of a battle which raged over
a hilly country and which shifted back and forth like a maelstrom. Crops
were growing and there were no prepared trenches. The first unit on the
scene was a machine-gun battalion, which rode on trucks throughout the
night of Friday, May 30, 1918, and arrived the next morning, going into
position to guard the bridges across the Marne at Château-Thierry.
Another unit arrived on Sunday morning, June 2, 1918, and before 4
o'clock the same afternoon had been in three fights, in one of which it
drove the Germans back two kilometers on a front of four kilometers.
The beginning of June, 1918, in fact, which marked the entrance of the
Americans into the battle line of the Soissons-Marne-Rheims salient,
found them in the thick of the conflict almost before they had breathing
time to dig in.
The Germans at once locked horns with them at Neuilly, Château-Thierry,
and Jaulgonne. When the Americans appeared near the first-named place,
the Germans were trying to enter Neuilly Wood. They had succeeded in
entering the village of Neuilly-la-Poterie near by and found the
adjacent woods, occupied by the French and Americans, a stumblingblock
to their advance. The American machine gunners mowed down the advancing
enemy battalions and later supported the French infantry in a
counterattack which forced the enemy to retire beyond the northern edge
of the wood. On June 31, 1918, the Germans made another attempt to drive
the Americans out. They concentrated large forces and advanced in massed
formation. Again they were met by a rain of machine-gun fire, which
smothered a similar hail of bullets the Germans had shed on the
Americans from hastily erected machine-gun positions on the skirts of
the wood. The Americans advanced before the Germans reached their line,
engaged them at close quarters with the bayonet, broke their formations
and sent them fleeing in confusion to the ruined village beyond the wood
whence they had come.
While these attacks were under way American and French troops on the
Marne near Jaulgonne, east of Château-Thierry, were engaged in repelling
a battalion of Germans who had forced a passage of the river at that
point. In a sharp combat, marked by the fierceness of their machine-gun
fire, the French and Americans, fighting side by side, almost wiped out
the German forces which reached the southern bank of the Marne. Most of
the survivors were rounded up in small groups and captured. They
numbered a hundred. A second German attack was launched later with shock
troops, who also gained a footing on the southern bank, but again their
stay was not long. The footbridge on which they crossed was swept by
American machine-gun fire, and rushes of American infantry forced the
enemy back.
The most notable of these preliminary contacts the Germans had with the
Americans on the southern arc of the salient was at Château-Thierry. The
battalion of American machine gunners already mentioned, which had been
posted on May 31, 1918, to guard the river bridges at that town, found
the Germans already in the northern outskirts. The town lies on both
sides of the Marne, which is there spanned by a big bridge. A little to
the northward a canal runs parallel to the river and is crossed by a
smaller bridge. The Germans had made their way into the northern part
of the town through a gap they had driven in the Allied lines to the
left, and began to stream through the streets toward the bridge,
intending to establish themselves firmly on the southern bank and
capture the town.
They reckoned without the American machine gunners, who had been
suddenly thrown into Château-Thierry with French colonial troops. The
Americans immediately took over the defense of the river bank,
especially the approaches to the bridge. They began operations by poking
the muzzles of their weapons through broken walls, bushes, and holes
knocked in the sides of the houses. The guns were skillfully hidden and
the Germans were unable to locate them. The latter wavered under the
American fire, their advance was brought to a standstill, and a
counterattack by the French colonials drove them from the town. As usual
the Germans attempted a counterassault. The next night, June 1, 1918,
taking advantage of the darkness, they stole toward the large bridge, in
which direction they penetrated through the western suburbs to the banks
of the Marne. In order to mask their movements, they made use of smoke
bombs, which made the aim of the machine guns very difficult. At the
same time the town underwent an extremely violent bombardment. A
surprise, however, was in store for them. They were already crossing the
bridge, evidently believing themselves masters of both banks, when a
thunderous explosion blew the center of the bridge and a number of
Germans with it into the river. Those who reached the southern bank were
immediately captured. Holding the south end of the bridge, the Americans
covered the withdrawal of troops across the bridge before its
destruction, and although under severe fire themselves, kept all the
approaches to the bank under a rain of bullets, which nullified all the
subsequent efforts of the enemy to cross the river. Every attempt of the
Germans to elude the vigilance of the Americans resulted in disaster to
them. The upshot was that the Germans abandoned the occupation of the
northern part of Château-Thierry, which American machine guns made
untenable, and it became a part of no-man's-land. The Americans
altogether made a brilliant defense of the town. A French staff officer
described it as one of the finest feats of the war. There was little
left of the town itself. It was shot to pieces and became a pile of
bricks and stones.