ST. MIHIEL
"What are we going to do?" asked Bob.
"What can we do?" Ned returned.
"Let's go after him and bring him back!" exclaimed the excitable Bob.
"Maybe the Germans have him!"
"Then we'll not easily get him," said Jerry. "And, as a matter of
fact, we can't even try."
"Why not?" asked Ned.
"Because we can't leave. All furloughs have been stopped these last
three days. We may go into action any minute. If the professor is in
trouble we can't help him."
"That seems hard," murmured Bob.
"It is," agreed Jerry. "But it's the fortune of war. We're here to
fight, and we've got to do that when the time comes. It may be that
the professor has only wandered off among our own soldiers, or those
of the French or English, after a butterfly or some other bug."
"But without his hat!" exclaimed Bob.
"And gone more than a day!" added Ned.
"Those things wouldn't worry him," said Jerry. "Half the time he
forgets his hat, and it is midsummer now. As for being gone more than
a day, he's often spent longer than that chasing a single flea. He is
used to camping out, and he'll get along somehow. We'll just have to
let him go, that's all."
"I suppose so," agreed Ned; "but it's too bad."
It was, but there was nothing they could do. The professor might
wander into the enemy's territory and be captured, or he might come
safely back to the little French village.
"Though if he doesn't come back what are we to do with his things and
about Professor Petersen's nieces?" asked Ned.
"The best we can," advised Jerry.
"After the war, if we're alive, we can look for the girls," suggested
Bob.
"Pretty slim chance of finding 'em," murmured Ned.
"It wouldn't do much good, anyway, if we can't find the professor. The
money was not left to us to divide," was Jerry's comment.
Jerry had spoken truly when he said that all leave had been stopped,
for now were beginning the final great assaults of the American and
Allied armies that were, if not actually to overwhelm the Huns, at
least to approach so nearly that state that there was a distinction
without a difference.
And it was well that Ned, Bob, and Jerry returned to their station
when they did, for not ten minutes later the general order to move
forward was given up and down the long line.
"Forward!" was the battle cry--the watchword that was to guide them
all. "Forward!"
Forward they went, against Germany's best troops. Forward against a
relentless and almost impregnable foe. Forward in the name of
Humanity, Freedom, and Right. Forward all!
And as Ned, Bob, and Jerry marched with their comrades up to the
firing lines there began that great movement of American troops which
took part in the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient--the wiping out
of the great wedge the Germans had driven into France. And with the
wiping out of this there began the final battle--the cleaning of the
Argonne Forest which brought an end to the war.
For some time General Pershing and his general staff had looked
forward to the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient. With that out of
the way it meant the concentration of the American divisions in their
own zone.
Late in August the line, beginning at Port sur Seille, east of the
Moselle, and extending to the west through St. Mihiel, thence north to
a point opposite Verdun, was placed under the supervision of the
American commander. Later the American sector was extended across the
Meuse to the western edge of the Argonne Forest, and included the
Second Colonial French, which held the point of the salient and the
Seventeenth French Corps, which occupied the heights above Verdun.
As Ned, Bob, and Jerry marched on with their comrades they saw, or
became aware of, the immensity of the preparations needed to make this
movement a success. For they had to move against a German position
second to none in strength. To quote General Pershing:
"The preparation for a complicated operation against the formidable
defenses in front of us included the assembling of divisions and of
corps of army artillery, transport, aircraft, tanks, ambulances, the
location of hospitals, and the molding together of all of the elements
of a great modern army with its own railheads, supplied directly by
our own Service of Supply. The concentration for this operation, which
was to be a surprise, involved the movement, mostly at night, of
approximately 600,000 troops, and required for its success the most
careful attention to every detail.
"The French were generous in giving us assistance in corps and army
artillery, with its personnel, and we were confident from the start of
our superiority over the enemy in guns of all calibers. Our heavy
guns were able to reach Metz and to interfere seriously with German
rail movements. The French Independent Air Force was placed under my
command which, together with the British bombing squadrons and our air
forces, gave us the largest assembly of aviation that had ever been
engaged in one operation on the western front."
It must not be imagined that all this great army went forward in a day
or two, or that the battle lasted but a short time. On the other hand,
it was a fight, tooth and nail, for almost every foot of the way. The
battle line from Les Esparages, around the nose of the St. Mihiel
salient to the Moselle River was about forty miles, and was greatly
strengthened by artificial defenses. This gives some idea of the task
ahead of General Pershing. If you will picture to yourself a distance
from your own home, as you sit reading this, to some point distant
forty miles, in the woods or mountains, and then figure this forty
miles occupied by advancing troops, fighting against a ruthless foe,
you will have some idea of the battle of St. Mihiel.
And it was forward into this battle that Ned, Bob, and Jerry and their
comrades moved. It would be impossible to tell all that happened--of
the surging forward into the face of devastating fire; of the men who
fell at the sides of the chums, killed or desperately wounded; of the
terrible and awful sights they saw. For days they fought on. Gaining
ground here, losing, perhaps, a little there, hiding all night in
rain-filled shell-holes, being driven out, but going back to recapture
them again. On and on they went.
They were weary to death, but they kept on, and, for a wonder, such is
sometimes the fortune of war, neither Ned, Bob, nor Jerry was
seriously wounded. They received minor knocks, scratches, and bruises,
and once Bob's cheek was grazed by a bullet. But they did not have to
drop out of the fighting.
And it was fierce! No other word describes it. They fought, and
fought, and fought again, onward, ever onward. For they must not stop.
The American army did not know that word.
And then, after nearly two weeks of steady fighting, with only such
rest for the exhausted troops as was absolutely necessary, came the
final stage. Ned, Bob, and Jerry, staggering from weariness, took
their places in line one gray morning.
Suddenly about them thundered great salvos of firing. It shook the
very ground. The chums looked at one another in wonder.
"This must be another big show," shouted Jerry. He had to shout to be
heard above the noise.
"It is," said Ned.
And it was. It was the final assault against the last of the German
defenses in St. Mihiel.
"Forward!" came the cry, given after four hours of the greatest
artillery barrage ever laid down. At five o'clock, on the morning of
September 12th, seven American divisions in the front line advanced.
They were assisted by tanks, manned by Americans and French, and there
were groups of wire-cutters and other groups armed with bangalore
torpedoes. "These," says General Pershing, in his report, "went
through the successive bands of barbed wire that protected the enemy's
front line and support trenches, in irresistable waves on schedule
time, breaking down all defenses of an enemy demoralized by the great
volume of our artillery fire, and our sudden approach out of the
fog."
And forward, in their own modest and humble way, with this great army
of liberation went Ned, Bob, and Jerry. Shooting and being shot at
they went forward until the iron strength of the foe was broken, and
the cry sounded:
"They're running away! We've got 'em beat!"
And thus it was. German troops were giving way in a rout. Let General
Pershing tell it in his own simple way:
"Our 1st Corps advanced to Thiacourt, while our 4th Corps curved back
to the southwest through Nonsard. The 2d Colonial French Corps made
the slight advance required of it on very difficult ground, and the
5th Corps took its three ridges and repulsed a counter-attack. A rapid
march brought reserve regiments of a division of the 5th Corps into
Vigneulles in the early morning, where it linked up with patrols of
our 4th Corps, closing the salient and forming a new line west of
Thiacourt to Vigneulles and beyond Fresnes-en-Woevre. At the cost of
only 7,000 casualties, mostly light, we had taken 16,000 prisoners and
443 guns, a great quantity of material, released the inhabitants of
many villages from enemy domination, and established our lines in a
position to threaten Metz. This signal success of the American First
Army in its first offensive was of prime importance. The Allies found
they had a formidable army to aid them, and the enemy learned finally
that he had one to reckon with."
And that was the battle of St. Mihiel.