FIGHTING THROUGH FORESTS
Now came a bitter struggle for the possession of Epieds and Trugny, to
the east and southeast of Bezu-St. Germain. Below Trugny lay Barbillon
Wood, also an objective of the attackers. The Germans viciously defended
these points. A give-and-take battle raged round the two towns all day
on July 23, 1918; but in the region of Barbillon Wood the Germans fell
back, burning depots and ammunition and supply dumps, and evacuating
many farms which had been strongly fortified for defense. The fighting
extended still farther east in front of Jaulgonne and Charteves. The
American progress here was made in the face of most obstinate resistance
by the Germans, who fought every foot. Even when making steps backward,
they endeavored to render the American progress costly by leaving behind
German machine gunners cleverly concealed in nests. These gunners were
not told that the main body was withdrawing, and were left at the mercy
of the advance. Several of them when captured expressed unfeigned
surprise when told that their comrades had withdrawn.
Châtelet Forest was another stumblingblock. Several sallies into these
woods having proved abortive, the French swung round to the north, and
the Americans to the south. Machine guns and American light artillery
played on the woods, and the Germans were finally uprooted from their
main ambushes there. It was one of the positions the Germans had chosen
for the stand after their withdrawal from the Marne.
The terrain was mostly woody in the area above the Marne where the
Franco-American line had reached. The fighting was therefore pursued in
the midst of concealed antagonists. In the forest of Barbillon the
Germans had a machine gun screened every ten yards of their front. Their
hidden artillery impeded American reenforcements. The attackers had to
beat their way into the woods, encountering rocky ledges that formed
excellent nests for enemy machine guns. The German positions were
excellent for defensive fighting; but with the slow but sure closing in
of their western flank, and a like movement proceeding east of them, the
woods would become traps if they retained them. They did not retain
them. They merely fought spitefully to impede the Franco-American
progress and safeguard the retreat of their main forces out of the
dangerous Marne pocket.
They desperately clung to the region of Epieds and Trugny. At this
point German infantry, which had been pushed back, were thrust forward
again to check the Franco-American advance from the southwest toward
Fère-en-Tardenois.
"The Germans," reported Reuter's correspondent with the American troops,
"fought well and checked the advance for some thirty-six hours, and
three times wrested the village of Epieds from their determined American
opponents. In the meantime the village grew constantly smaller under the
ceaseless bombardment from both sides and finally disappeared, not even
a large pile of bricks being left behind.
"When the village disappeared the Germans were in possession. The
Americans, tired of the ceaseless ebb and flow of the fighting there,
had taken the slopes on either flank and forced the Germans to make
their final massed attack into the ruins of the village.
"Meanwhile the Allied guns had been brought up beyond the crest of the
hill, and as soon as the Germans took possession of the village they
concentrated a terrific fire upon it until the place smoked with its own
red dust as though on fire. When the guns ceased firing there were no
Germans left to capture, or even to bury.
"At the edge of the wood beyond Trugny the German machine guns,
stationed ten yards apart, held up the advance a little longer. Making a
feint frontal attack, however, the Americans crept, Indian fashion,
around the flanks and captured all the guns.
"Afterward the pace of the advance quickened. All the high ground north
of Epieds was taken and the line carried beyond Courpoil."
A series of like local actions brought the Franco-American line by July
25, 1918, well beyond the foregoing points and into the region of the
Fère and Riz forests, where the Germans had retreated from Epieds. They
were dense woods of poplar and oak rising amid thick underbrush. Hidden
among the clustered foliage, German machine gunners desperately
contended for every inch of ground before surrendering it. They vainly
tried to hold the French and Americans in the southern part of the Riz
forest with the object of saving huge supplies gathered there. An
examination of the woods afterward showed hundreds of tons of ammunition
for big German guns, piled six feet high in rows a hundred yards long
for some distances. This ammunition had been stored there to be used in
the advance on Paris.
By a flanking movement above the forest of Fère the Americans carried
the village of Beuvardes, making their line run from that point through
the northern part of Fère forest to Le Charmel and through the Riz
forest southeast to above Dormans. Le Charmel, which lies on the
Jaulgonne road, with a wooded hill on each side, changed hands twice
before taken by the Americans. The Germans had strong machine gun
positions both in the village and on the hills. Their fire raked the
Americans when they charged the village and compelled them to retire.
Later, assisted by comrades from the two forests, the Americans overcame
the Germans, who withdrew from Le Charmel slowly and stubbornly.
By July 27, 1918, the Franco-American forces had driven the Germans
almost entirely out of the wooded area they had been so obstinately
defending. The pressure was constantly maintained toward the road
junction of Fère-en-Tardenois, the Franco-American objective, and
thither the pursuers progressed through the remainder of the dense woods
and over rain-soaked fields and hills on their outskirts.
In the course of this forest fighting the troops were warned to watch
for Germans wearing American or French uniforms, a device they had
successfully practiced. Rushing across an open place in the forest when
German nests had been discovered, a German, speaking perfect English,
called to American machine gunners:
"Don't shoot. There are Americans in that thicket."
The Americans were at the edge of the forest, firing into a wood
opposite. They ceased when the detachment appeared. The detachment
entered a forest to the right of the Americans, and in a few minutes a
hail of machine-gun bullets came from that direction. The Americans
realized that they had been duped, and turned their machine guns upon
the impostors.
On July 28, 1918, the Americans were on the south bank of the Ourcq.
This river, intended by the Germans to be a halting line, but which they
could not hold, marked a notable point in the American progress from the
banks of the Marne. Foch's forward movement from the west and southwest
had been proceeding simultaneously and now became merged along this
river into the movement up from the south.
American participation from the west had been less conspicuous; but
American troops left their mark, whatever their zone of operations, and
in this area they made their presence painfully felt south of Soissons.
At the beginning of the western advance, east of Vierzy and northeast of
Chaudon, they encountered the pick of the German shock troops after
fighting for thirty hours. The result was that the youthful Americans,
meeting the kaiser's best, who were fresh and in the pink of condition,
themselves essayed the task of becoming shock troops. They had reached
their objectives, a varying number of miles eastward, and were
consolidating their positions when the shock came. Against one American
unit two German shock divisions were hurled; against another came the
famous Prussian Guards. The Germans had machine guns mounted on wheels
and rolled them to the edge of the woods where the fighting occurred.
These guns shot explosive bullets at the Americans. Shock troops came to
close grips with shock troops--and the Franco-American advance was not
only sustained but extended.