ACROSS THE MARNE AND BACK
Officially Germany had refused to recognize the growing weight of
American belligerency. If she could evade alluding to American forces
specifically in reporting events on the battle field, she did so. "The
enemy," to be sure, covered a multitude of enemies--more than half the
world--so why designate which one, and why designate the one now most
feared, of whose mounting strength it was not expedient to enlighten the
beguiled people at home?
The pretense could no longer be sustained after her abortive drive
against the eastern and southern flanks of the Soissons-Rheims salient
on July 14, 1918. There was a reason. Germany might ignore the presence
of American detachments operating with the French or British and be
airily blind to the activities of American patrols along the Lorraine or
Alsace fronts. They were merely "the enemy." But in making this plunge
to widen the salient by way of encircling Rheims and cutting another way
to Paris she crashed into an obstacle that compelled recognition. It was
the First American Army Corps, numbering some 250,000 men, under the
command of Major General Hunter Liggett. If Americans, in her
self-deceiving view, had before been as needles in a haystack, here they
had become the haystack itself, and it was all needles!
The American army skirted the southern arc of the salient, eastward
along the Marne somewhere beyond Jaulgonne, westward through
Château-Thierry to Torcy, where it joined the French. Germany's first
operation was to make a feint of attacking the American lines northwest
of Château-Thierry by way of screening her major operation, which was to
break through the American barrier guarding the Marne. The assault was
especially violent in the Vaux area, which was enveloped in a heavy
barrage following the usual bombardment of high explosives and gas.
Under the barrage storming parties attacked the village. The system of
infiltration by groups was followed and some of the groups succeeded in
penetrating one of the American outposts on the northeast. The Americans
swarmed out and poured a withering rifle and machine-gun fire on the
assailants, and counterattacked on the latter's right, where the
penetration had taken place. It was a direct and flanking fire, held in
reserve until the foe had approached the American front-line trenches,
from which the troops had withdrawn. Its effect was to demoralize the
attackers, who retired in disorder.
The counterattack brought the American lines 750 yards ahead and yielded
a number of prisoners, whose capture was due to a barrage laid by the
American artillery, which cut off the enemy's retreat.
The attack had an immediate sequel in the evacuation by the Germans of
Hill 204, upon an advance by the Americans up its west side. The Germans
had paid much to hold this hill, resisting many assaults, notably the
one described in the last chapter, and now they chose to vacate it
rather than defend the hill further. Their tenure of all this area was
to be very brief, and perhaps they knew it.
Soon after the Vaux demonstration, the Germans attacked the American and
French positions all along the Marne. Ordered to break through the
Americans holding the line south of the Marne, and reach a line running
eleven kilometers south of Jaulgonne, running through Montigny, they
crossed the Marne under the protection of a severe bombardment, and
pushed ahead three kilometers to a line through Crezancy.
The grand advance was signalized by a long-distance bombardment of towns
in the rear of the American lines. Heavy shells from German naval guns
fell in regions far behind the actual battle area, some reaching points
twenty to thirty miles distant. It was mainly a night display, marked by
a constant hurtling of projectiles from ten-and fifteen-inch naval guns,
and canopied the whole countryside with a blaze of light. The German
purpose was to batter towns and communication lines beyond the defense
line and to harass the movement of supplies and reenforcements.
The Marne curls to a salient northward at Jaulgonne, and the peak of
this bend provided the first crossing for the Germans. Descending upon
this point in great force, they succeeded in crossing the river in the
face of a destructive fire from American machine gunners and infantry,
who fought and died where they stood. The salient could not be held,
being exposed to fire from three sides. Westward of it toward
Château-Thierry, and eastward toward and beyond Dormans, the German
advance likewise could not be stayed, and there was a general withdrawal
of American forces along the river bank.
The Germans succeeded in crossing at ten points between Château-Thierry
and Dormans. They threw many pontoon bridges over to bear their troops.
Shoals of canvas boats were also brought into requisition. These proved
more serviceable than the bridges, the laying of which was repeatedly
thwarted by American fire. Protected by the heavy bombardment, the boats
managed to carry the members of the kaiser's famed Tenth Guard Division,
twenty to each boat; but very few of them got back.
American guns foiled their passage three times. Machine gunners clung to
their posts on the river bank here and there till the last moment. They
poured deadly streams of bullets into the enemy, and only withdrew when
their guns were so hot that they could not be fired. One group happened
to be in a place where the Germans were anxious to erect a bridge, but
their efforts were fruitless. The American bullets piled up the German
dead on the opposite side of the river every time the enemy started to
cross.
South of Jaulgonne the enemy crossed the Marne on six pontoon bridges,
hurriedly thrown over the stream, and masses of infantry swarmed
forward. The artillery constantly had the bridges under the heaviest
fire, and at least two direct hits were made, two of the bridges being
blown up. The task of preventing German swarm, despite these checks,
proved too great, and the Americans fell back to the base of the salient
made by the river.
Once on the southern bank of the Marne, the German masses, augmented by
numbers of machine gunners, proceeded to force the Americans farther
back toward Condé. They had succeeded in landing a force estimated at
15,000 men in the river sector abandoned by the Americans. This force
promptly started to fight its way south, having a point about nine miles
distant as its objective. The Americans and French held up this advance
to such an extent that two hours after the time set by the enemy for
reaching his objective, he was still far away from it. The Germans
specially suffered heavy losses in the woods forming the triangle from
Fossoy to Mézy and Crezancy. There the Americans were overwhelmed by
such large numbers that the line could not hold; but nevertheless they
refused to retreat where they could possibly hold a place in the woods.
This sent the German advance sweeping over large numbers of nests which
sheltered ten, five, or two Americans, and sometimes one, who held on
while the Germans passed by and then opened fire on them.
It was manifest that the advance could not be allowed to continue. The
enemy by noon had driven forward over two miles on a front of about
three and a half miles south of the Marne through the American
positions; but he got no farther. Even while fighting in the open
continued, the Americans organized a counterattack in the region of
Condé, below Fossoy, about the time the German advance had apparently
eliminated the salient. There, because of their heavy losses, they
seemed content to stand, and there they remained for four hours.
Meantime American reenforcements came up. Light artillery was hurried
into position. It concentrated a heavy fire at short range, and when
this fire ceased, the augmented American infantry dashed from cover.
Machine gunners moved forward, and, lying on the ground, poured a stream
of bullets into the enemy. The fierceness of the fire brought the
Germans up short. They would not face the steel, and, retiring,
hesitatingly at first, finally broke and fell back.
Points that had fallen to the Germans--Fossoy, La Chapelle, St. Agnan,
Bois de Condé, Crezancy, and Mézy--were recovered with French aid. By 4
o'clock in the afternoon the Germans had been driven to the railroad
track skirting the south bank of the Marne. There they took up
positions; but there was no pause for them. The American gunners got the
range of the landing places, where the Germans had stretched cables by
which they hauled boats across the swollen stream, and there was no
retreat in the way they had come. The Americans pursued them behind the
railroad embankment. Slowly the graycoats were forced back. Some of
them swam the Marne to safety, but their number was few. Many of them
were drowned in the river. The Americans in front were on open ground,
making the best use of whatever shelter offered. German forces were on
the hills on the opposite side of the river, showering high explosives
and gas shells upon them, but the Americans went forward, nevertheless,
with gas masks adjusted, and crawling at times for a considerable
distance on all fours. In this way they advanced bit by bit, and when
they came within range close enough they drove the enemy back.
The Germans retained some precarious positions south of the Marne; but
they were completely swept back across the river between Château-Thierry
and Jaulgonne. They were driven where they were before the advance
began. They vented their wrath the next morning by sending thousands of
high explosive and noxious gas shells into the American lines. They had
set out to swing their line northeast of Château-Thierry; but it still
swung northwest, and presently it was to swing much farther back.
The American losses were serious, as was to be expected in the most
important action in which the Americans had yet engaged. In return,
however, they exacted a toll from the Germans that made their losses
seem light. It was estimated that they killed, wounded, or captured
20,000 of the enemy. Hundreds of the latter were slain while retreating
across the Marne. One battalion of the 6th German Grenadiers, according
to prisoners, was annihilated in the woods, and of the other battalion
only one company survived. The south bank of the Marne was lined with
German dead, while in the woods south of Mézy, through which the Germans
advanced and retreated, 5,000 enemy dead lay, some bodies three and four
deep where they had dared, in close formation, the American machine
guns.
There were sporadic counterattacks, which were readily repulsed by the
Americans and French. The lines wavered back and forth, and then came a
sudden shift of the pivot of the entire German action in the
Soissons-Rheims salient. The Marne was no longer an object to be gained,
but rather a danger to flee from.