A MARTIAL PANORAMA
But meanwhile great and portentous things had been happening elsewhere
on the long battle line. Up in Flanders, the British troops, with
American brigades fighting shoulder to shoulder with them, were driving
the Germans eastward. Farther south, the French were hounding the
fleeing Germans. And American forces around Soissons were pounding away
in such a fashion as to make the positions along the Vesle untenable for
their stubborn defenders.
The enlisted men knew little or nothing of this and even the junior
officers were surprised when word came back from patrols on the north of
the river on September 4th, that they met almost no opposition from the
enemy. Even his artillery fire had fallen off to a little desultory
shelling, so at once a general advance was ordered.
Roads in the rear instantly became alive with motor trucks, big guns,
columns of men, wagon trains and all the countless activities of an
army on the march. The sight of the main forces crossing the river was a
wonderful one to the officers standing on the hills overlooking the
scene, and one that they never will forget.
The long columns debouched from the wooded shelters, deployed into wide,
thin lines and moved off down the slope into the narrow river valley.
Below them lay the villages and towns of the Vesle, pounded almost to
dust by the thousands of shells which had fallen upon them during the
weeks the two armies contended for their possession. The men went down
the hill exactly as they had done so often in war maneuvers and sham
battles at training camps. Only an occasional burst of black smoke and a
spouting geyser of earth and stones showed it was real warfare, although
even that had been so well simulated in the training that, except that
now and then a man or two dropped and either lay still or got up and
limped slowly back up the hill, the whole thing might have been merely a
drama of mimic warfare. Many of the officers who watched did, in fact,
compare it with scenes they had witnessed in motion pictures.
Despite the occasional casualty, the line moved steadily forward. On
reaching the river, there was little effort to converge at the hastily
constructed bridges. Men who were close enough veered over to them, but
the rest plunged into the water and either waded or swam across,
according to the depth where they happened to be and the individual's
ability to swim.
Once on the north side, they started up the long slope as imperturbably
as they had come down the other side, although every man knew that when
they reached the crest of the rise they would face the German machine
gun fire from positions on the next ridge to the north.
Without faltering an instant, the thin lines topped the rise and
disappeared from the watchers to the south, and the fight was on again.
The German machine gunners resisted and retired foot by foot, but the
American advance was unfaltering. It had been freely predicted that the
enemy would make a stand on the high plateau between the Vesle and the
Aisne, but the pressure elsewhere on his line to the west and north
precluded the possibility of this and he plunged on northward.
The 109th Infantry made its crossing of the Vesle about two and a half
miles east of Fismes, the regiment's position on the south of the river
having been at Magneux. Its next objective point was Muscourt. The
Germans confronting it had not retired so precipitately as those at
Fismette and the regiment fought its way across the river and on
northward, losing its third commander in the action.
Colonel Samuel V. Ham, regular army officer, who had succeeded Colonel
Coulter when he was wounded, led the firing line of the regiment across
the river. He was so severely wounded that he was unable to move, but
remained ten hours on the field looking after the welfare of his men. So
conspicuous was his action that he was cited and awarded the
Distinguished Service Cross, the official citation reading as follows:
"For extraordinary heroism in action near Magneux, France, September 6,
1918. By courageously leading his firing line in the advance across the
Vesle River from Magneux toward Muscourt, Colonel Ham exemplified the
greatest heroism and truest leadership, instilling in his men confidence
in their undertaking. Having been severely wounded and unable to move,
he remained ten hours on the field of battle, directing the attack, and
refused to leave or receive medical attention until his men had been
cared for."
The Pennsylvania regiments came onto the high ground, from which the
lowlands to the north were spread out before them like a panorama, and
in the misty distance, fifteen miles away, they could descry the towers
of the Cathedral at Laon. This was, in a sense, the Allied promised
land. It was defiled and invaded France and, furthermore, Laon, since
1914 had been the pivot of the German line, the bastion upon which the
great front made its turn from north and south to east and west.
The five miles of hill, plateau and valley lying between the Vesle and
the Aisne were not crossed with impunity. It was on the Aisne plateau
that another company of the 109th wrote its name high on the scroll of
honor.
A small wood below the village of Villers-en-Prayeres obstructed the
advance of the regiment. It had been strongly organized by the Germans
and was fairly alive with Boche machine gunners and snipers. Company G,
of the old First, was ordered to dispose of it. The orders were carried
out in what the official communique of the next day referred to as a
"small but brilliant operation." Considering the small extent of the
action and the fact that it was but an incident of the whole battle, the
fact that it was mentioned at all in the official reports speaks volumes
for the men who carried it out.
The glory and distinction were won at a bitter cost. Company G, after
the fight was over, ranked side by side with Companies L and M of the
same regiment and B and C of the 110th for their splendid stand and
heavy losses south of the Marne. There were 125 casualties in the
company of 260 men. Included among them were Sergeant Frederick E.
Bauer, Sergeant Graham McConnell, Corporal Thomas S. B. Horn, Private
Charles A. Knapp, all of Philadelphia, and Sergeant John H. Winthrop, D.
S. C., of Bryn Mawr, killed, and Lieutenant Harold A. Fahr and Sergeant
Earl Prentzel, both of Willow Grove, Pa.; Corporal Theodore G. Smythe,
Bugler Howard W. Munder, Privates Gus A. Faulkner, Charles Quenzer,
Thomas Biddle, Robert C. Dilks, Frederick C. Glenn, Charles Lohmiller
and Bernard Horan, all of Philadelphia, wounded.
Private Paul Helsel, of Doylestown, Pa., a member of the same company,
came out of the battle with six bullet holes through his shirt, two
through his breeches, the bayonet of his rifle shot away and a bullet
embedded in the first aid packet carried on his hip, but without a
scratch on his person.
The Americans were subjected at times to a heavy artillery fire,
especially while crossing the plateau. For about two miles it was
necessary for them to advance in the open on high ground, plainly
visible to German observers. There was little cover, and both heavy and
light artillery swept the zone, but with slight effect and without
checking to any degree the forward movement.
The advance of the Americans over the plateau was effected without
material loss because, instead of advancing in regular formations, they
were filtered into and through the zone, never presenting a satisfactory
target.
The German stand on the Vesle had enabled them to remove the bulk of
the supplies they had accumulated there and what they could not remove
they burned. Vast fires, sending up clouds of smoke in the distance,
marked where ammunition dumps and other stocks of supplies were being
destroyed that they might not fall into the hands of the Americans. Thus
it was that the progress from the Vesle presented a different aspect
from that between the Marne and the Vesle, where the way had been
impeded in places by the unimaginable quantities of supplies of every
conceivable kind the Hun had abandoned in his flight.
By September 10th, the pursuit had come to an end, as far as the Iron
Division was concerned. The Americans and French were on the Aisne and
the enemy again was snarling defiance across a water barrier.
The artillery regiments followed the infantry as far as the high ground
between the rivers and there took position to blast the Huns away from
the Aisne and send them rolling along to their next line, the ancient
and historic Chemin-des-Dames, or Road of Women.
Battery C, 107th Artillery, of Phoenixville, commanded by Captain
Samuel A. Whitaker, of that town, a nephew of former Governor Samuel W.
Pennypacker, was the first of the Pennsylvania big gun units to cross
the Vesle.
On the night of September 10th, the 107th was relieved by the 221st
French Artillery Regiment, near the town of Blanzy-les-Fismes. The
French used the Americans' horses in moving into positions. They
discovered they had taken a wrong road in moving up and just as they
turned back the Germans, who apparently had learned the hour of the
relief, laid down a heavy barrage. A terrible toll was taken of the
French regiment.
Lieutenant John Muckel, of the Phoenixville battery, with a detail of
men, had remained with the French regiment to show them the battery
position and bring back the horses. When the barrage fell, Lieutenant
Muckel was thrown twenty-five feet by the explosion of a high-explosive
shell, and landed plump in the mangled remains of two horses. All about
him were the moans and cries of the wounded and dying Frenchmen. He had
been so shocked by the shell explosion close to him that he could move
only with difficulty and extreme pain. He was barely conscious, alone in
the dark and lost, for the regiment had gone on and his detachment of
Americans was scattered.
Lieutenant Muckel, realizing he must do something, dragged himself until
he came to the outskirts of a village he learned later was Villet. Half
dazed, he crawled to the wall of a building and pulled himself to his
feet. He was leaning against the wall, trying to collect his scattered
senses, when a shell struck the building and demolished it.
The Lieutenant was half buried in the debris. While he lay there, fully
expecting never again to rejoin his battery, Sergeant Nunner, of the
battery, came along on horseback and heard the officer call. The
Sergeant wanted the Lieutenant to take his horse and get away. The
Lieutenant refused and ordered the Sergeant to go and save himself. The
Sergeant defied the Lieutenant, refusing to obey and announcing that he
would remain with the officer if the latter would not get away on the
horse. At last they compromised, when the Lieutenant had recovered
somewhat, by the Sergeant's riding the horse and the Lieutenant's
assisting himself by holding to the animal's tail. In this way they
caught up with the battery.
Having reached the Aisne, the Twenty-eight Division now was relieved and
ordered back to a rest camp, which they sadly needed, after about sixty
days of almost unremitting night and day fighting for the infantry and
approximately a month of stirring action for the artillery.
Thoroughly exhausted, but serene in the knowledge of a task well and
gloriously performed, their laurels thick upon them and securely in
possession of the manfully earned title, "The Iron Division," what was
left of our Pennsylvania men turned their backs upon the scene of action
and prepared to enjoy a well-earned period of repose and recreation.
It was not to be, however. Disappointments, of which they had been the
prey for more than a year, dogged their footsteps. While on the road,
moving toward a rest camp as fast as they could travel, orders reached
the division to proceed eastward to where General Pershing had begun to
assemble the American forces into the First American Army. The
emergency which had led to the use of American brigades under French
and British higher command had passed and America at last was to have
its own army under its own high command, subject only to the supreme
Allied commander, Marshal Ferdinand Foch.
The men in the ranks were keenly alive to the fact that they were headed
for a rest camp, and when their route and general direction were changed
overnight and they set off the next day at right angles to the course
they had been traveling, they knew something else was in store for the
division. Not an officer or man, however, had an inkling of what time
only brought forth--that the thing they were about to do was
immeasurably greater, more glorious and more difficult than that which
they had accomplished.
Grumbling among themselves, after the true soldier fashion when not too
busily engaged otherwise, the men found some compensation in the
knowledge that their herculean efforts of the past weeks were understood
and acknowledged by the higher authorities. They cherished with open
pride a general order issued by Major-General Charles H. Muir, the
division commander. It was of special significance because he is a
regular army officer, not a Pennsylvanian, and therefore not imbued with
local or state pride, and also because before the war the National Guard
was held in huge contempt by the average regular army officer. Here is
what General Muir's general order told the men:
"The division commander is authorized to inform all, from the lowest to
the highest, that their efforts are known and appreciated. A new
division, by force of circumstances, took its place in the front line in
one of the greatest battles of the greatest war in history.
"The division has acquitted itself in a creditable manner. It has
stormed and taken points that were regarded as proof against assault. It
has taken numerous prisoners from a vaunted Guards division of the
enemy.
"It has inflicted on the enemy far more loss than it has suffered from
him. In a single gas application, it inflicted more damage than the
enemy inflicted on it by gas since its entry into battle.
"It is desired that these facts be brought to the attention of all, in
order that the tendency of new troops to allow their minds to dwell on
their own losses, to the exclusion of what they have done to the enemy,
may be reduced to the minimum.
"Let all be of good heart! We have inflicted more loss than we have
suffered; we are better men individually than our enemies. A little more
grit, a little more effort, a little more determination to keep our
enemies down, and the division will have the right to look upon itself
as an organization of veterans."