An interesting feature in connection with the endeavor to "speed up" was

the competition in riveting. Early in the year in yard after yard expert

riveters were reported as making extraordinary records, and prizes were

offered to the winners of such records. Later, however, such contests

were discouraged by Chairman Hurley and by others. The best record was

made by John Omir, who drove twelve thousand two hundred and nine rivets

in nine hours at the Belfast Yards of Workman and Clark. In the

accomplishment of this feat on two occasions he passed the mark of one

thousand four hundred rivets an hour. In his best minute he drove

twenty-six rivets.

The ships constructed by the Shipping Board were of steel, of wood and

of concrete, and at times considerable difference of opinion existed

with regard to which form of ship should receive the most attention. The

policy of the government seemed finally to favor the steel as it was

claimed that the wooden type was not only more expensive, but that it

was less efficient. However until the very end wooden ships in great

numbers were being built.

On May 31st the steamship Agawam, described as the first fabricated ship

in the world, was launched in the yards of the Submarine Boat

Corporation at Newark. This was essentially a standardized steel cargo

ship. "Fabricated" is the technical term applied to ships built from

numbered shapes made from patterns.

President Carse, of the Submarine Boat Corporation, said that the Agawam

was the first of a hundred and fifty vessels of that type which would be

constructed in the yard. The parts were made, he said, in bridge and

tank shops throughout the country and were assembled at the yard.

"Ninety-five per cent of the work in forming the parts entering into the

hull of this vessel, and punching rivet holes, is done at shops widely

separated, from drawings furnished by this company, and these drawings

have been of such exactitude, and the work has been so carefully

performed by the different bridge shops that when they are brought

together at this yard they fit perfectly and the ship as you see is

absolutely fair. The construction of the hull of this vessel requires

the driving of over four hundred thousand rivets, and by our method more

then one quarter of these rivets are driven at the distant shops, the

different parts being brought to the yard in sections as large as can be

transported on the railroad. Each part is numbered and lettered and as

they are shaped perfectly all that is necessary is to place them in

position, bolt them, and finally fasten them with rivets."

Officials of the company said that they expected to launch in the course

of time two such vessels in each week. A standard ship of this type has

a dead-weight carrying capacity of five thousand five hundred tons. It

is three hundred and forty-three feet long and forty-six feet wide and

is expected to show an average speed of ten and a half knots. Fuel oil

is used to generate steam, to drive a turbine operating three thousand,

six hundred revolutions a minute. The oil is carried in compartments of

the double bottom of the ship in sufficient quantity for more than a

round trip to Europe. Twenty-seven steel mills, fifty-six fabricating

plants, and two hundred foundries and equipment shops were drawn upon to

construct the ship.

In addition to the steel and wood vessels the Emergency Fleet

Corporation also constructed a number of concrete ships. The first step

in this direction was taken on April 3d, when the construction of four

7,500-ton concrete ships at a Pacific coast shipyard was authorized.

This action was taken as a result of a report on the trials made with

the concrete ship, Faith, which was built in San Francisco by private

capital. The test of this ship had been satisfactory and Mr. R. J. Wig,

an agent of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, who had made a careful

inspection of the Faith and watched the tests, reported his confidence

in the new cargo carrier. The successful trial trip of the Faith led, on

the 17th of May, to the government order that fifty-eight mere such

ships be constructed. Sites for yards were leased and contracts awarded.

The concrete ship turned out to be a great success.

The extraordinary success of the American ship-building program during

the World War was due to the enthusiasm of the workmen employed at the

government plants, and that same enthusiasm was found in connection with

their work in every industry on which the Government made demands.

American labor was thoroughly loyal. It recognized that in the war for

democracy against autocracy it had a vital concern. The attitude of the

great American labor unions must however be sharply distinguished from

that of the extreme socialists who refused to take any part in helping

to win the war.

From the very beginning, the American Federation of Labor took a

patriotic stand. Its leader was Mr. Samuel Gompers, and it was fortunate

for America that the leadership of this great organization was in such

patriotic hands. Mr. Gompers had been for many years president of this

great labor organization, and was so often called in consultation by the

President of the United States in connection with labor affairs that he

might almost be called an unofficial member of the President's cabinet.

Mr. Gompers was by birth an Englishman, but he had left his home when

still a boy and was thoroughly filled with true American patriotism.

From the beginning he devoted himself with the greatest enthusiasm not

only to the protection of the interests of which he was in charge, but

to the prosecution of a successful war. He had to contend, as labor

leaders in other countries had been compelled to contend, with

socialistic and anarchistic organizations.

During the period of America's participation in the war there were

certain disturbances caused by the I. W. W., but from such movements the

American Federation of Labor held itself aloof. Occasional strikes, on

account of special conditions, were easily settled. The governmental

assumption of control over railroads and other essential industries had

much to do with the peaceful attitude of the workmen. The very high

wages which were offered to the workmen at munitions works,

ship-building plants and other governmental enterprises enabled the

workmen there to live in reasonable comfort, though it caused a great

deal of trouble in private industry, and compelled an increase in pay to

labor all over the land.

In the latter part of the war Mr. Gompers traveled abroad, as a

representative of American labor, and was greeted everywhere with the

utmost enthusiasm, while his influence was strongly felt in favor of

moderate and sane views as to labor's rights.

The American situation with regard to labor was made much simpler by the

organization of the United States Employment Service. This was made an

arm of the Department of Labor, with branch offices in nearly all the

large cities of every state. It had a large corps of traveling

examiners, men skilled in determining the fitness of workers for

particular jobs, and it undertook to recruit labor for the various war

industries in which they were needed. During the last year of the war

from a hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred thousand workers of all

kinds were given work each month. In addition to this the Employment

Service was a clearing house of information for manufacturers. The

Director General of this service was Mr. John B. Densmore.

Labor throughout the country, except when influenced by men of foreign

birth who were not in touch with the spirit of America, was universally

loyal, and its share in the winning of the war will always remain a

matter for pride.

[Illustration: Photograph]

THE GREATEST SHIPYARD IN THE WORLD

View of Hog Island shipyard near Philadelphia, showing the forest of

derricks rising from its fifty shipways. At the time the war ended,

35,000 persons were at work and 180 ships were in course of

completion.

[Illustration: Painting]

THE LARGEST SHIP IN THE WORLD AS A U. S. TRANSPORT

Among the German ships taken over by the United States at the outbreak

of the war was the "Vaterland," the largest ship ever built. She was

renamed the "Leviathan" and used as a transport, carrying 12,000

American soldiers past the submarines on each trip. She is shown here

entering a French harbor at the end of a passage.

CHAPTER XLI

GERMANY'S DYING DESPERATE EFFORT

In the spring of 1918 it must have been plain to the German High Command

that if the war was to be won it must be won at once. In spite of all

their leaders said of the impossibility of bringing an American army to

France they must have been well informed of what the Americans were

doing. They knew that there were already more than two million men in

active training in the American army, and while at that time only a

small proportion of them were available on the battle front, yet every

day that proportion was growing greater and by the middle of the summer

the little American army would have become a tremendous fighting force.

Their own armies on their western front had been enormously increased in

size by the removal to that front of troops from Russia. Hundreds of

thousands of their best regiments were now withdrawn from the east and

incorporated under the command of their great Generals, Hindenburg and

Ludendorf, in the armies of the west. They must, therefore, take

advantage of this increased force and win the war before the Americans

could come.

The problem of the Allies was also simple. It was not necessary for them

to plan a great offensive. All they had to do was to hold out until,

through the American aid which was coming now in such numbers, their

armies would be so increased that German resistance would be futile.

Under such circumstances began the last great offensive of the German

army.

At that time it seems probable that the armies of Great Britain and

France numbered about three million five hundred thousand men, and that,

of these, six hundred and seventy thousand were on the front lines when

the German attack began, leaving an army of reserve of about two million

eight hundred and fifty thousand men. A considerable number of these

were probably in England on leave. The number of French soldiers must

have been between four and five million, of whom about one million five

hundred thousand were on the front line. Adding to these the American,

Belgian, Portuguese, Russian and Polish troops the Allied forces could

not have been short of eight million five hundred thousand men.

[Illustration: Map: Lens on the North, St. Quentin on the East, Soissons

on the South, Amiens on the West.]

HOW GERMANY ATTEMPTED TO DIVIDE THE ALLIED ARMIES

The map shows the ground covered by the Germans in the terrific

Picardy drive of March, 1918, which had for its object the capture of

Amiens and the push forward along the Somme to the channel, thus

dividing the British army in the north from the French and Americans

in the south.

The strength of the Germans on the western front before the Russian

Revolution was probably about four million five hundred thousand men,

and the withdrawal of Russia from the war had added to that number

probably as many as one million five hundred thousand men, making an

army of six million men to oppose that of the Allies. The Allies,

therefore, must have considerably outnumbered the Germans.

In spite of this fact in nearly all the engagements in the early part of

the great offensive the Allied forces were outnumbered in a ratio

varying from three to one to five to three. This was possible, first,

because in any offensive the attacking side naturally concentrates as

many troops as it can gather at the point from which the offense is to

begin, and second, since the Allies were not under one command it was

with great difficulty that arrangements could be made by which the

forces of one nation could reinforce the armies of another.

The first difficulty of course could not be obviated, but the solution

of the second difficulty was the appointment of General Foch as

Commander-in-Chief of all the Allied forces.

The appointment was made on March 28th and all the influence of the

United States had been exerted in its favor. General Pershing at once

offered to General Foch the unrestricted use of the American force in

France and it was agreed that a large part of the American army should

be brigaded with the Allied troops wherever there were weak spots.

Foch was already famous as the greatest strategist in Europe. He comes

of a Basque family and was born in the town of Tarbes, in the Department

of the Hautes-Pyrenees, which is on the border of Spain, on October 2,

1851. Foch served as a subaltern in the Franco-Prussian War and at

twenty-six was made captain in the artillery. Later he became Professor

of Tactics in the Ecole de Guerre, where he remained for five years. He

then returned to regimental work and won steady promotion until he

became brigadier-general. He was sent back to the War College as

Director and wrote two books, "The Principles of War" and "Conduct of

War," which have been translated into English, German and Italian and

are considered standard works. He was now recognized as a man of unusual

ability and was appointed to the command first, of the Thirteenth

division, then of the Eighth corps at Bourges, and then to the command

of the Twentieth corps at Nancy.

Unlike Marshal Joffre who was cool, careful, slow moving, Marshal Foch

is full of daring and impetuosity. Everything is calculated

scientifically but his strategy is full of dash. Many of his sayings

have been passed from mouth to mouth among the Allies.

"Find out the weak point of your enemy and deliver your blow there," he

said once at a staff banquet.

"But suppose, General," said an officer, "that the enemy has no weak

point?" "If the enemy has no weak point," replied the Commander, "make

one."

It was he who telegraphed to Joffre during the first battle of the

Marne: "The enemy is attacking my flank. My rear is threatened. I am

therefore attacking in front."

Foch is a great student, an especial admirer of Napoleon, whose

campaigns he had thoroughly studied. Even the campaigns of Caesar he had

found valuable and had gathered from them practical suggestions for his

own campaigns. He is the hero of the Marne, the man who on September 9th

marched his army between Von Bulow and Von Hausen's Saxons, drove the

Prussian Guards into the marshes of St. Gond and forced both Prussians

and Saxons into their first great retreat. Later his armies fought on

the Yser while the British were battling at Ypres. During the battle of

the Somme he was on the English right pressing to Peronne.

For a time he became Chief of the French Staff, until he was called into

the field again to his great command. Foch was one of those French

officers who had felt that war was sure to come, and had constantly

urged that France should be kept in a state of preparedness. The

appointment of General Foch to the Supreme Command was largely the

result of American urgency.

General March, the American Chief of Staff, in one of his weekly

announcements, stated: "One of the most striking things noticeable in

the situation as it is shown on the western front is the supreme

importance of having a single command. The acceptance of the principle

of having a single command, which was advocated by the President of the

United States and carried through under his constant pressure, is one of

the most important single military things that has been done as far as

the Allies are concerned. The unity of command which Germany has had

from the start of the war has been a very important military asset, and

we already see the supreme value of having that central command which

now has been concentrated in General Foch."

General March, who had earlier been appointed Chief of Staff of the

United States army, was sending a steady stream of American troops to

Europe, a fact whose importance was well understood by the new

Commander-in-Chief. On General March's promotion General Foch sent him

the following message:

I hear with deep satisfaction of your promotion to the rank of General.

I associate myself to the just pride which you must feel in evoking the

names of your glorious predecessors, Grant and Sheridan. I convey to you

my sincere congratulations and I am happy to see you assume permanently

the huge task of Chief of Staff of the United States army which you are

already performing in so brilliant a way.

General March replied:

Your message of congratulation upon my promotion to the grade of General

Chief of Staff, United States army, was personally conveyed to me by

General Vignal, French Military Attache. I appreciate deeply your most

kindly greetings and in expressing my most sincere thanks, avail myself

of the opportunity to assure you of every assistance and constant

support which may lie in my power to aid you in the furtherance and

successful accomplishment of your great task.

General Foch took command at a very critical time. The Germans had

prepared the most formidable drive in the history of the war. They had

gathered immense masses of munitions and supplies. Their great armies

had been refitted and they were in hopes of a victory which would end

the war. Their great offensive had many phases. It resulted in the

development of three great salients, the first in Picardy and in the

direction of Amiens along the Somme, which was launched on March 21st;

the second on the Lys, which was launched on April 9th; and the third

which is called the Oise-Marne salient, launched on May 27th.

Between the attacks which developed these salients there were also some

unsuccessful attacks of almost equal power. On March 28th there was a

desperate struggle to capture Arras, preceded by a bombardment as great

as any during the whole offensive, but this attack was defeated with

enormous losses to the German troops. A fourth phase of the German

offensive took place on June 9th, on a front of twenty miles between

Noyon and Montdidier, which gained a few miles at an enormous cost.

[Illustration: Map: Belgium and Eastern France, show the front from

Ypres south to Rheims.]

THE LAST DESPERATE DRIVES OF THE GERMANS

On July 15th came the last of the great offensives. It was a smash on a

sixty-mile line from Chateau-Thierry up the Marne, around Rheims, and

then east to a few miles west of the Argonne forest. This offensive at

the start made a penetration of from three to five miles, but was held

firmly and much of the gain lost, through the counter-attacks of the

Allies. It was at this point that the American troops first began to be

seriously felt, and it was at this point that General Foch took up the

story, and began the great series of Allied drives which were to crush

the German power. But there had been many days of great anxiety before

the turn of the tide.

The objects of the German drives were doubtless more or less dependent

upon their success. The first drive in Picardy, in the direction of

Amiens had apparently as its object to drive a wedge between the French

and British and the object was so nearly attained that only the heroic

work of General Carey saved the Allies from disaster.

The Fifth British army, which had borne the brunt of the German attack,

had found itself almost crushed by the sheer weight of numbers. The

whole line was broken up and it seemed as if the road was open to

Amiens. French reinforcements could not come up in time; bridges could

not be blown up because the engineers were all killed. Orders came to

General Carey at two o'clock in the morning, March 26th, to hold the

gap. He at once proceeded to gather an extemporized army.

Every available man was rounded up, among others a body of American

engineers. Laborers, sappers, raw recruits as well as soldiers of every

arm. There were plenty of machine guns, but few men knew how to handle

them. With this scratch army in temporary trenches, he lay for six days,

and as Lloyd George said, "They held the German army and closed that gap

on the way to Amiens."

During this fight General Carey rode along the lines shouting

encouraging words to his hard-pressed men. He did not know whether he

would get supplies of ammunition and provisions or not, but he stuck to

it. Later on the regular troops arrived. The American engineers, who had

been fighting, immediately returned to their base, and resumed work

laying out trenches. General Rawlinson, Commander of the British army at

that point, sent the commanding officer of the Americans engaged, the

following letter:

The army Commander wishes to record officially his appreciation of the

excellent work your regiment has done in assisting the British army to

resist the enemy's powerful offensive during the last ten days. I fully

realize that it has been largely due to your assistance that the enemy

has been checked, and I rely on you to assist us still further during

the few days that are still to come before I shall be able to relieve

you in the line. I consider your work in the line to be greatly enhanced

by the fact that for six weeks previous to your taking your place in the

front line your men had been working at such high pressure erecting

heavy bridges on the Somme. My best congratulations and warm thanks to

all.

RAWLINSON.

The demoralization of General Gough's Fifth army, which had thus left an

eight-mile gap on the left, and which had been saved at that point by

General Carey, permitted also the opening of another gap between its

right wing and the Sixth French army. Here General Fayolle did with

organized troops what Carey had done with his volunteers further north.

The reason for the success of both Carey and Fayolle appears to have

been that the German armies had been so thoroughly battered that they

were unable to take advantage of the situation. Their regiments had been

mixed up, their officers had been separated from their men in the rush

of the attack, and before they could recover the opportunity was lost.

The first days of April saw the end of the drive toward Amiens. The

Germans claimed the capture of ninety thousand prisoners and one

thousand three hundred guns. They had penetrated into the Allies'

territory in some points a distance of thirty-five miles. Their new line

extended southwest from Arras beyond Albert to the west of Moreuil,

which is about nine miles south of Amiens, and then went on west of

Pierrepont and Montdidier, curving out at Noyon to the region of the

Oise.

The first part of April was a comparative calm, when suddenly there

developed the second drive of the German offensive. This drive was not

so extensive as the first one, and its object appeared to be to break

through the British forces in Flanders and reach the Channel ports. It

resulted in a salient embracing an area about three hundred and twenty

square miles, and the Germans claimed the capture of twenty thousand

prisoners and two hundred guns. It was at this point that General Haig

issued his famous order in which he described the British armies as

standing with their "backs to the wall." It reads as follows:

Three weeks ago today the enemy began his terrific attacks against us on

a fifty-mile front. Its objects are to separate us from the French, to

take the Channel ports, and to destroy the British army. In spite of

throwing already one hundred and six divisions into the battle and

enduring the most reckless sacrifice of human life, he has yet made

little progress toward his goals. We owe this to the determined fighting

and self-sacrifice of our troops. Words fail me to express the

admiration which I feel for the splendid resistance offered by all ranks

of our army under the most trying circumstances. Many among us now are

tired. To those I would say that victory will belong to the side which

holds out the longest. The French army is moving rapidly and in great

force to our support. There is no other course open to us but to fight

it out. Every position must be held to the last man. There must be no

retiring. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our

cause each one of us must fight to the end. The safety of our homes, and

the freedom of mankind depend alike upon the conduct of each one of us

at this critical moment.

The British commander's order made the situation clear to the British

people and to the world. The Germans had given up for the moment their

attempt to divide the British and French armies, and were now attempting

to seize the Channel ports, and the British were fighting with true

British pluck with their "backs to the wall."

One can imagine the anxiety in the villages of Flanders where they

watched the German advance and heard the terrible bombardment which was

destroying their beautiful little cities, and threatening to put them

under the dominion of the brutal conquerors of Belgium. Town after town

fell to the enemy until at last the German attack began to weaken.

Counter-attacks on April 17th recaptured the villages of Wytschaete and

Meteren. At other points German attacks were repulsed, and the attack on

the Lys had reached its limits. It had not only failed to reach the

coast but it had not even reached so far as to force the evacuation of

Ypres or to endanger Arras. On the contrary the Germans had paid for

their advance by such terrible losses that the ground that they had

gained meant almost nothing. They then made, on April 30th, a vigorous

endeavor to broaden the Amiens salient in the region of Hangard and

Noyon. This attack also failed.

On May 27th Ludendorf made his next move. This was in the south, and was

preceded by the most elaborate preparations over a forty-mile front. At

first it met with great success. German troops from a point northwest of

Rheims to Montdidier were moving apparently with the purpose of breaking

the French lines and clearing the way for a drive to Paris.

Consternation reigned among Allied observers as the Germans carried,

apparently with ease, first the formidable Chemin des Dames, which was

believed invulnerable, and then the south bank of the Aisne, with its

great fortifications at Soissons.

Criticism began to appear of General Foch, who was thought at first to

have been taken by surprise. The Germans were using four hundred

thousand of their best troops, and the greatest force of tanks, machine

guns and poison-gas projectors which they had ever gathered. They

captured over forty-five thousand prisoners and took four hundred guns.

They penetrated thirty miles and gained six hundred and fifty square

miles of territory, but they were held on the River Marne.

It is now apparent that General Foch knew exactly what he was about. He

might easily, by sending in reinforcements, have put up the same

desperate resistance to the German offensive which they were now meeting

in other sectors. But he preferred to retreat and lead the enemy on to a

position which would make them vulnerable to the great counter-attack he

was preparing for them on their flank. The Germans reached the Marne,

but they paid for it in the terrible losses which they incurred.

The German line now from Montdidier, the extreme point of the Amiens

salient, to Chateau-Thierry, the point of the new Marne salient, was in

the form of a bow, and on June 9th General Ludendorf attempted to

straighten out the line. His new attack was made on a twenty-mile front

between Montdidier and Noyon in the direction of Compiegne. This was

another terrific drive and at first gained about seven miles. French

counter-attacks, however, not only held him in a vise but regained a

distance of about one mile. This battle was probably the most disastrous

one fought by the Germans during their whole offensive. Nearly four

hundred thousand men were completely used up, without gaining the

slightest strategic success.

Then followed a period without battles of major importance, during which

General Foch by periodic assaults on the Lys, the Somme, on the flanks

of Montdidier and Soissons, on the Chateau-Thierry sector and southwest

of Rheims, captured many important positions and kept the enemy in

constant anxiety.

During the great German offensives the Germans had lost at least five

hundred thousand men, while the casualties of the Allies were barely one

hundred and fifty thousand. The Germans also were beginning to lose

their morale. They were finding that however great might be their

efforts, however terrible might be their losses, they were still being

constantly held. Their troops were now apparently made of inferior

material, and included boys, old men and even convicts.

The system of making attacks by means of shock troops was producing the

inevitable result. The shock regiments were composed of selected men,

picked here and there, from the regular troops. Their selection had

naturally weakened the regiments from which they were taken. After three

months of great offensives these shock troops were now in great part

destroyed, and the German lines were being held mainly by the inferior

troops which had been left. Moreover, in other parts of the world, the

allies of Germany were being beaten. In Italy and Albania and Macedonia

there was danger.

The Germans prepared for one more effort. On June 18th they had made a

costly attempt to carry Rheims. On July 15th they made their last drive.

Ludendorf took almost a month for preparation. He gathered together

seventy divisions and great masses of munitions, and then drove in from

Chateau-Thierry on a sixty-mile line up on the Marne, and then east to

the Argonne forests. His line made a sort of semicircle around Rheims

and then pushed south to the east and west of that fortress.

Once again he had temporary success. West of Rheims he penetrated a

distance of five miles, and on the first day, had crossed the Marne at

Dormans, but was held sharply by the Americans east of Chateau-Thierry.

On the second day he made further gains, but with appalling losses. On

the 17th he was still struggling on with minor successes but on July

18th the French and Americans launched the great counter-offensive from

Chateau-Thierry along a twenty-five mile front, between the Marne and

the Aisne. The Germans everywhere began their retreat and the war tide

had turned.

The German attack east of Rheims had been a failure from the start. The

Allied forces retired about two miles and then held firm. The country

there is flat and sandy and gave little shelter to the attacking forces

which lost terribly. In this sector, too, there were many American

troops, who behaved with distinguished bravery.

By this time nearly seven hundred thousand men of the American army were

on the battle line. They had been fighting here and there among the

French and English but on June 22d General March made the announcement

that five divisions of these troops had been transferred to the direct

command of General Pershing as a nucleus for an American army.

In glancing back at the great German drives which have now been

described, one is impressed by the terrific character of the fighting.

This struggle undoubtedly was the greatest exertion of military power in

the history of the world. Never before had such masses of munitions been

used; never before had scientific knowledge been so drawn on in the

service of war. Thousands of airplanes were patrolling the air,

sometimes scouting, sometimes dropping bombs on hostile troops or on

hostile stores, sometimes flying low, firing their machine guns into the

faces of marching troops. Thousands upon thousands of great guns were

sending enormous projectiles, which made great pits wherever they fell.

Swarms of machine guns were pouring their bullets like water from a hose

upon the charging soldiers.

One of the most noticeable artillery developments was the long-range gun

which off and on during this period was bombarding Paris. This

bombardment began on March 23d, when the nearest German line was more

than sixty-two miles away. For a time the story was regarded as pure

fiction, but it was soon established that the great nine-inch shells

which were dropping into the city every twenty minutes came from the

forests of St. Gobain, seven miles back of the French trenches near

Laon, and about seventy-five miles from Paris. This was another of those

futile bits of frightfulness in which the Germans reveled. Military

advantage gained by such a gun was almost nothing, and the expense of

every shot was out of all proportion to the damage inflicted. It only

roused intense indignation and stirred the Allies to greater

determination. The first day's casualties in Paris were ten killed and

fifteen wounded. By the next day one would not have been able to tell

from the Paris streets that such a bombardment was going on at all. The

subway and surface cars were running, the streets were thronged and

traffic was going on as usual. About two dozen shells were thrown into

Paris every day, mainly in the Montmartre district, in a radius of about

a mile. This seemed to show that the gun was immovable.

On March 29th, however, a shell struck the church of St. Gervais during

the Good Friday service, killing seventy-five persons and wounding

ninety. Fifty-four of those killed were women. The church had been

struck at the moment of the Elevation of the Host. This outrage aroused

special indignation, and Pope Benedict sent a protest to Berlin.

An examination of exploded shells indicated that the new German gun was

less than nine inches in caliber, and that the projectiles, which

weighed about two hundred pounds, contained two charges, in two chambers

connected by a fuse which often exploded more than a minute apart. It

took three minutes for each shell to travel to Paris and it was

estimated that such a shell rose to a height of twenty miles from the

earth. Three of these guns were used. One of these guns exploded on

March 29th, killing a German lieutenant and nine men. The Kaiser was

present when the gun was first used. It was said by American scientists

that seismographs in the United States felt the shock of each discharge.

On April 9th French aviators discovered the location of the new guns,

and French artillery began to drop enormous shells weighing half a ton

each near the German monsters. A few days later a French shell fell on

the barrel of one of these guns and put it out of commission. Great

craters were made around the other, interfering with its use, and toward

the end of the period it was only occasionally that the remaining gun

was fired, and no great damage resulted.

Another feature of the great German drives was the tremendous

destruction that accompanied them. Not only were churches, public

buildings, and private houses throughout almost the whole district

turned into ruins, but the very ground itself was plowed up into craters

and shell holes, and the trees smashed into mere splinters. During the

whole campaign poison gas of various kinds was used in immense

quantities, and it was constantly necessary for the troops to wear gas

masks. Sometimes after a town had been evacuated by the enemy it was so

filled with gas that it was impossible for victorious troops to enter.

One of the fiercest bombardments was that directed against the

Portuguese during the fighting along the Lys. The enemy made a special

attempt to crush the Portuguese contingent which behaved with the utmost

gallantry.

It was the season of the year when the orchards were covered with

blossoms and the fields with flowers, but the horrors of war destroyed

the beauty of the spring. In these battles men fought until they were

completely exhausted and one could see troops staggering as they walked

and leaning on each other from pure exhaustion.

These were days when wonders were performed by the Medical Departments

of the Allied armies, and the work of the Red Cross was almost as

important as the work of the soldiers. Relief for the wounded had to be

undertaken and carried on a mammoth scale. Many of the doctors, nurses,

orderlies and ambulance men lost their lives while making efforts to

rescue the wounded.

These were days when the German leaders were filled with the pride of

victory. They were talking now about a hard German peace. On June 17th

the German Kaiser celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of his accession

to the throne. He talked no more of a war of self-defense, but declared

the war to be the struggle of two world views wrestling with each other.

"Either German principles of right, freedom, honor and morality must be

upheld, or Anglo-Saxon principles with their idolatry of Mammon must be

victorious." He sent congratulations to Field Marshal von Hindenburg, to

General Ludendorf and to the Crown Prince. Von Hindenburg assured the

Kaiser of the unswerving loyalty until death of Germany's sons at the

front, and concluded "May our old motto 'Forward with God for King and

Fatherland, for Kaiser and Empire' result in many years of peace being

granted to your Majesty after our victorious return home."

But the terrific attacks which the German commanders directed upon the

Americans at Chateau-Thierry and at other points upon the southern lines

show well that they knew that there was another danger rising to

confront them; that during their great drives a million and a half

American soldiers had been learning the art of war, and that every

moment of delay meant a new danger. By the end of this period the

Americans had arrived.

CHAPTER XLII

CHATEAU-THIERRY, FIELD OF GLORY

Nowhere in American history may be found a more glorious record than

that which crowned with laurel the American arms at Chateau-Thierry.

Here the American Marines and divisions comprising both volunteers and

selected soldiers, were thrown before the German tide of invasion like a

huge khaki-colored breakwater. Germany knew that a test of its empire

had come. To break the wall of American might it threw into the van of

the attack the Prussian Guard backed by the most formidable troops of

the German and Austrian empires. The object was to put the fear of the

Hun into the hearts of the Yankees, to overwhelm them, to drive straight

through them as the prow of a battleship shears through a heavy sea. If

America could be defeated, Germany's way to a speedy victory was at

hand. If America held--well, that way lay disaster.

And the Americans held. Not only did they hold but they counter-attacked

with such bloody consequences to the German army that Marshal Foch,

seizing the psychological moment for his carefully prepared

counter-offensive, gave the word for a general attack.

With Chateau-Thierry and the Marne as a hinge, the clamp of the Allies

closed upon the defeated Germans. From Switzerland to the North Sea the

drive went forward, operating as huge pincers cutting like chilled steel

through the Hindenburg and the Kriemhild lines. It was the beginning of

autocracy's end, the end of Der Tag of which Germany had dreamed.

The matchless Marines and the other American troops suffered a loss that

staggered America. It was a loss, however, that was well worth while.

The heroic young Americans who held the might of Germany helpless and

finally rolled them back defeated from the field of battle, and who paid

for that victory with their lives, made certain the speedy end of the

world's bloodiest war.

The story of the American army's effective operations in France from

Cantigny to the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient, is one long record

of victories. To the glory of American arms must be recorded the fact

that at no time and at no place in the World War did the American forces

retreat before the German hosts.

In the latter days of May, 1918, the Allied forces in France seemed near

defeat. The Germans were steadily driving toward Paris. They had swept

over the Chemin des Dames and the papers from day to day were

chronicling wonderful successes. The Chemin des Dames had been regarded

as impregnable, but the Germans passed it apparently without the

slightest difficulty. They were advancing on a forty-mile front and on

May 28th had reached the Aisne, with the French and British steadily

falling back. The anxiety of the Allies throughout the world was

indescribable. This was the great German "Victory Drive" and each day

registered a new Allied defeat. Newspaper headlines were almost

despairing.

On May 29th, however, in quiet type, under great headlines announcing a

German gain of ten miles in which the Germans had taken twenty-five

thousand prisoners and crossed two rivers, had captured Soissons, and

were threatening Rheims, there appeared in American papers a quiet

little despatch from General Pershing. It read as follows:

"This morning in Picardy our troops attacked on a front of one and

one-fourth miles, advanced our lines, and captured the village of

Cantigny. We took two hundred prisoners, and inflicted on the enemy

severe losses in killed and wounded. Our casualties were relatively

small. Hostile counter-attacks broke down under our fire." This was the

first American offensive.

The American troops had now been in Europe almost a year. At first but a

small force, they had been greeted in Paris and in London with

tremendous enthusiasm. Up to this point they had done little or nothing,

but the small force which passed through Paris in the summer of 1917 had

been growing steadily. By this time the American army numbered more than

eight hundred thousand men. They had been getting ready; in camps far

behind the lines they had been trained, not only by their own officers,

but by some of the greatest experts in the French and the British

armies. Thousands of officers and men who, but a few months before, had

been busily engaged in civilian pursuits, had now learned something of

the art of war. They had been supplied with a splendid equipment, with

great guns and with all the modern requirements of an up-to-date army.

[Illustration: Photograph]

Copyright Committee on Public Information.

From Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.

CHATEAU-THIERRY; WHERE AMERICA INFLICTED A SECOND GETTYSBURG ON

GERMANY

Poilus and Yanks in the foreground looking over the roofs of

Chateau-Thierry, where, in the middle of July in the last year of the

war, the Americans at a crucial moment stopped the German advance in

the second battle of the Marne. After that Germany never went forward

on any field of battle again.

[Illustration: Photograph]

French Official Photograph by International Film Service.

WIPING OUT THE ST. MIHIEL SALIENT

The first major exploit carried out independently by the American army

was the obliteration of the St. Mihiel salient, which had been in

German hands since 1914, a spectacular achievement, carried out in two

days with great brilliance and precision. The picture shows U. S.

troops following the Germans through Thiaucourt, one of the towns on

the salient.

For some months, here and there, on the French and British lines small

detachments of American troops flanked on both sides by the Allied

forces, had been learning the art of war. Here and there they had been

under fire. At Cantigny itself they had resisted attack. On May 27th

General Pershing had reported "In Picardy, after violent artillery

preparations, hostile infantry detachments succeeded in penetrating our

advance positions in two points. Our troops counter-attacked, completely

expelling the enemy and entering his lines." They had also been fighting

that day in the Woevre sector where a raiding party had been repulsed.

There had been other skirmishes, too, in which many Americans had won

honors both from Great Britain and France. But the attack at Cantigny

was the first distinct American advance.

The Americans penetrated the German positions to the depth of nearly a

mile. Their artillery completely smothered the Germans, and its whirr

could be heard for many miles in the rear. Twelve French tanks supported

the American infantry. The artillery preparation lasted for one hour,

and then the lines of Americans went over the top. A strong unit of

flame throwers and engineers aided the Americans. The American barrage

moved forward a hundred yards in two minutes and then a hundred yards in

four minutes. The infantry followed with clock-like precision. Fierce

hand-to-hand fighting occurred in Cantigny, which contained a large

tunnel and a number of caves. The Americans hurled hand grenades like

baseballs into these shelters.

The attack had been carefully planned and was rehearsed by the infantry

with the tanks. In every detail it was under the direction of the

Superior French Command, to whom much of the credit for its success was

due. The news of the American success created general satisfaction among

the French and English troops. The operation, of course, was not one of

the very greatest importance. It was a sort of an experiment, but coming

as it did, in the middle of the great German Drive, it was ominous.

America had arrived.

On May 30th General Pershing announced the complete repulse of further

enemy attacks from the new American positions near Cantigny. This time

he says: "there was considerable shelling with gas, but the results

obtained were very small. The attempt was a complete failure. Our

casualties were very light. We have consolidated our positions."

The London Evening News commenting on this fact says: "Bravo the young

Americans! Nothing in today's battle narrative from the front is more

exhilarating than the account of their fight at Cantigny. It was clean

cut from beginning to end, like one of their countrymen's short stories,

and the short story of Cantigny is going to expand into a full-length

novel which will write the doom of the Kaiser and Kaiserism. Cantigny

will one day be repeated a thousand fold."

The Germans, in reporting this fight, avoided mention of the fact that

the operation had been conducted by American troops. This seemed to

indicate that they feared the moral effect of such an admission in

Germany. Up to this time, with the exception of small brigades, the

American army had been held as a reserve. After the Cantigny fight they

were hurried to the front. The main point to which they were sent at

first was Chateau-Thierry, north of the Marne, the nearest point to

Paris reached by the enemy. There, at the very critical point of the

great German Drive, they not only checked the enemy but, by a dashing

attack, threw him back.

This may be said to be the turning point in the whole war. It not only

stopped the German Drive at this point, but it gave new courage to the

Allies and took the heart out of the Germans. The troops were rushed to

the battle front at Thierry, arriving on Saturday, June 1st. They

entered the battle enthusiastically, almost immediately after they had

arrived. A despatch from Picardy says: "On their way to the battle lines

they were cheered by the crowds in the villages through which they

passed; their victorious stand with their gallant French Allies, so soon

after entering the line, has electrified all France."

General Pershing's terse account of what happened reads as follows: "In

the fighting northwest of Chateau-Thierry our troops broke up an attempt

of the enemy to advance to the south through Veuilly Woods, and by a

counter-attack drove him back to the north of the woods."

The American troops had gone, into the action only an hour or so after

their arrival on the banks of the River Marne. Scarcely had they

alighted from their motor trucks when they were ordered into

Chateau-Thierry with a battalion of French-Colonial troops. The enemy

were launching a savage drive, and at first succeeded in driving the

Americans out of the woods of Veuilly-la-Poterie. But the Americans at

once counter-attacked, driving their opponents from their position, and

regaining possession of the woods. On the same day the Germans launched

an attack of shock troops, attempting to gain a passage across the Marne

at Jaulgonne. They obtained a footing on the southern bank but another

American counter-attack forced them back across the river. The American

soldiers were fighting with wonderful spirit, and the French papers were

filled with praise of their work. As they came up to go into the line

they were singing, and they charged, cheering.

[Illustration: Map: Paris is in Southwest corner. Amiens in the

Northwest corner and Rheims is on the East side.]

WHERE THE "YANKS" FOUGHT THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE MARNE

On June 6th came a climax of the American fighting. It was the attack of

the American Marines in the direction of Torcy. This gained more than

two miles over a two and a half mile front. On the next day the advance

continued over a front of nearly six miles, and during the night the

Americans captured Bouresches and entered Torcy.

The fighting at Torcy was characteristically American; the Marines

advanced yelling like Indians, using bayonet and rifle. From Torcy the

Marines set forward and took strong ground on either side of Belleau

Wood. They had reached all the objectives and pushed beyond them. The

Germans were on the run, and surrendering right and left to the

Americans. The attack by the Marines forestalled an attack by the enemy.

German reports now noticed the Americans. Their report on June 9th

referring to this attack, says: "Americans who attempted to attack

northwest of Chateau-Thierry were driven back beyond their positions of

departure with heavy losses and prisoners were captured." The Americans

had lost heavily, and the hospitals were filled with their wounded, but

the thorough American organization was giving the wounded every care,

and the Americans were still moving forward.

On June the 10th, another attack was made on the German lines in the

Belleau Wood, which penetrated for about two-thirds of a mile, leaving

the Germans in possession of only the northern fringe of the Wood. On

June 11th the official statement of the French War Office declared:

"South of the Ourcq River the American troops this morning brilliantly

captured Belleau Wood, and took three hundred prisoners."

Belleau Wood had been considered an almost impregnable position, but the

valiant fighting of the American Marines had carried them past it.

Fighting here was not merely a series of exciting engagements, but an

important action, which may have turned, and very probably did turn, the

whole tide of battle. The Americans put three German divisions out of

business, and caused a change in the German plans, by preventing an

extending movement to Meaux, which was the German objective.

From this time on the confidence shown in all reports from the Allies in

France was strengthened. They had found that the Americans were all that

they had hoped for, and they were sure now that they could hold on until

the full American strength could be brought to bear. General Pershing

himself was full of optimism and his fine example stimulated his troops.

From this time on all dispatches show that the Americans were more and

more getting in the game. Repeated German attacks against their forces,

on the Belleau-Bouresches line were repulsed, in spite of the fact that

crack German divisions, who had been picked especially to punish them,

had been found on their front. It was later found that these divisions

had been suddenly ordered to that point "in order to prevent at all

costs the Americans being able to achieve success." The German High

Command was apparently anxious to prevent American success from

stimulating the morale of the Allied army.

During the rest of the summer the Americans took an active part in

Foch's great offensive which ultimately crushed the German army. They

were heard from at widely divergent points: in Alsace, about

Chateau-Thierry, at Montdidier, and in the British lines.

Most of the fighting during June indicated a slow advance at

Chateau-Thierry. On June 19th the Americans crossed the Marne, near that

city. But Chateau-Thierry itself was not captured until the middle of

July. On June 29th they participated in a raid near Montdidier and on

July 2d captured Vaux. In the week of July 4th news came of American

success in the Vosges. On July 18th they advanced close to Soissons. On

August 3d the Americans captured Fismes, and then for nearly a month

made little actual progress, though bitter fighting went on in the

country around Fismes and near Soissons. On August 29th after a furious

battle they captured the plain of Juvigny, north of Soissons.

In all these battles the Americans were doing their part at difficult

points, during the great French drive which was clearing out the Marne

salient.

On the 12th of September, the first American army, assisted by certain

French units, and under the direct command of General Pershing, launched

an attack against the St. Mihiel salient. This was the most important

operation of the American troops in the Great War. It was a complete

success. September 12th was the fourth anniversary of the establishment

of the salient, which reached out from the German line in the direction

of Verdun.

The attack was fighting on a grand scale, and that such an operation

should be intrusted to the American army indicated an entirely new phase

of America's participation in the war. It was preceded by a barrage

lasting four hours. The German troops, though probably suspecting that

such an attack was coming, were nevertheless surprised. The American

attack was on the southern leg of the salient along a distance of twelve

miles. The French attacked on the western side from a front of eight

miles. Each attack was eminently successful. On the southern front the

Americans reached their first objectives at some points an hour ahead of

schedule time. Thiaucourt was captured early in the drive; later the

Americans gained possession of Nonsard, Pannes, and Bouillonville.

[Illustration: Map: Verdun in the Northwest corner, St. Mihiel in

Southwest, Metz in the Northeast]

THE GREAT ST. MIHIEL SALIENT ESTABLISHED IN 1914 WAS OBLITERATED BY

THE AMERICANS IN SEPTEMBER, 1918

At first the resistance of the Germans, without being tame, was not

actually stiff, and the doughboys were able to sweep toward the second

line of any position without difficulty. There, however, the Germans

began to defend themselves sharply, which delayed, but did not stop the

American advance. The attack was made in two waves and carried the

American forces a distance of about five miles.

The next day the attack continued, and General Pershing's dispatch

stated: "In the St. Mihiel sector we have achieved further successes.

The junction of our troops advancing from the south of the sector with

those advancing from the west has given us possession of the whole

salient to points twelve miles northeast of St. Mihiel, and has resulted

in the capture of many prisoners. Forced back by our steady advance the

enemy is retiring, and is destroying large quantities of material as he

goes. The number of prisoners counted has risen to 13,300. Our line now

includes Herbeville, Thillet, Hattonville, St. Benoit, Xammes, Jaulny,

Thiaucourt and Vieville."

The salient was wiped out, and the St. Mihiel front reduced from forty

to twenty miles. Secretary Newton D. Baker, accompanied by Generals

Pershing and Petain, visited St. Mihiel a few hours after its capture.

They walked through the streets of the city, and heard many stories of

the long German occupation.

As the attack proceeded it became more and more evident that the German

defense had lost heart. Thousands of them surrendered, declaring they

did not care to fight any more. It was also noted that a surprisingly

large number of officers were among those captured. The only serious

resistance was to the attack south of Fresnes, which was obviously for

the purpose of protecting the German retreat.

The first American regiment stationed in the St. Mihiel sector was the

370th Infantry, formerly the Eighth Illinois, a Negro regiment officered

entirely by soldiers of that race. This regiment was one of the three

that occupied a sector at Verdun when a penetration there by the Germans

would have been disastrous to the Allied cause.

The St. Mihiel salient had no great military value to the Germans, and

was probably held by them from a sentimental motive. It represented the

desperate efforts made by the Crown Prince in his early drive against

Verdun. Its destruction, however, was of great importance to the French.

It was not only a removal of a menace to the French citizens of Verdun,

but it released the French armies at that point for active offensive

operation. It also liberated the railway line from Verdun to Nancy,

which was of the utmost value to General Pershing and the French armies

to his left. It also later developed that the French command regarded

the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient as the corner stone of a great

encircling movement aimed at the German fortress of Metz. The moral

effect of its reduction was also notable as it was one more sign of the

weakening of the Germans.

[Illustration: Map: Verdun in the Northwest corner, St. Mihiel in

Southwest, Metz in the Northeast]

HOW THE ST. MIHIEL SALIENT LOOKED SHORTLY AFTER THE ASSAULT BEGAN

The map indicates the beginning of the great American drive, assisted

by the French, in 1918, which resulted in the wiping out of the huge

salient. The Americans attacked on the south, the French in the north;

dotted lines indicate the advance in the first five hours.

History usually concerns itself with the deeds of humanity in the mass

and with the leaders of these masses. It is eminently fitting, however,

that this history should record the impressions made upon the mind of an

American soldier by a modern battle. The United States Government

singled out of all the letters received from the front, that written by

Major Robert L. Denig, of Philadelphia, to his wife. The letter is now

part of the archives of the War Department, and occupies the highest

place of literary honor in the records of the Marines. It describes the

operation against the Germans on the Marne on July 18th, 1918. This was

the counter-attack led by the Marines which broke the back of the German

invasion. Major Denig wrote:

The day before we left for this big push we had a most interesting fight

between a fleet of German planes and a French observation balloon, right

over our heads. We saw five planes circle over our town, then put on,

what we thought afterwards, a sham fight. One of them, after many fancy

stunts, headed right for the balloon. They were all painted with our

colors except one. This one went near the balloon. One kept right on.

The other four shot the balloon up with incendiary bullets. The

observers jumped into their parachutes just as the outfit went up in a

mass of flame.

The next day we took our positions at various places to wait for camions

that were to take us somewhere in France, when or for what purpose we

did not know. Wass passed me at the head of his company--we made a date

for a party on our next leave. He was looking fine and was as happy as

could be. Then Hunt, Keyser and a heap of others went by. I have the

battalion and Holcomb the regiment. Our turn to en-buss did not come

until near midnight.

We at last got under way after a few big "sea bags" had hit nearby.

Wilmer and I led in a touring car. We went at a good clip and nearly got

ditched in a couple of new shell holes. Shells were falling fast by now,

and as the tenth truck went under the bridge a big one landed near with

a crash, and wounded the two drivers, killed two marines and wounded

five more. We did not know it at the time, and did not notice anything

wrong till we came to a crossroad when we found we had only eleven cars

all told. We found the rest of the convoy after a hunt, but even then

were not told of the loss, and did not find it out until the next day.

We were finally, after twelve hours' ride, dumped in a big field and

after a few hours' rest started our march. It was hot as Hades and we

had had nothing to eat since the day before. We at last entered a

forest; troops seemed to converge on it from all points. We marched some

six miles in the forest, a finer one I have never seen--deer would

scamper ahead and we could have eaten one raw. At 10 that night without

food, we lay down in a pouring rain to sleep. Troops of all kinds passed

us in the night--a shadowy stream, over a half-million men. Some French

officers told us that they had never seen such concentration since

Verdun, if then.

The next day, the 18th of July, we marched ahead through a jam of

troops, trucks, etc., and came at last to a ration dump where we fell to

and ate our heads off for the first time in nearly two days. When we

left there, the men had bread stuck on their bayonets. I lugged a ham.

All were loaded down.

Here I passed one of Wass' lieutenants with his hand wounded. He was

pleased as Punch and told us the drive was on, the first we knew of it.

I then passed a few men of Hunt's company, bringing prisoners to the

rear. They had a colonel and his staff. They were well dressed, cleaned

and polished, but mighty glum looking.

We finally stopped at the far end of the forest near a dressing station,

where Holcomb again took command. This station had been a big fine stone

farm but was now a complete ruin--wounded and dead lay all about. Joe

Murray came by with his head all done up--his helmet had saved him. The

lines had gone on ahead so we were quite safe. Had a fine aero battle

right over us. The stunts that those planes did cannot be described by

me.

Late in the afternoon we advanced again. Our route lay over an open

field covered with dead.

We lay down on a hillside for the night near some captured German guns,

and until dark I watched the cavalry--some four thousand, come up and

take positions.

At 3.30 the next morning Sitz woke me up and said we were to attack. The

regiment was soon under way and we picked our way under cover of a gas

infested valley to a town where we got our final instructions and left

our packs. I wished Sumner good luck and parted.

We formed up in a sunken road on two sides of a valley that was

perpendicular to the enemy's front; Hughes right, Holcomb left, Sibley

support. We now began to get a few wounded; one man with ashen face came

charging to the rear with shell shock. He shook all over, foamed at the

mouth, could not speak. I put him under a tent, and he acted as if he

had a fit.

I heard Overton call to one of his friends to send a certain pin to his

mother if he should get hit.

At 8.30 we jumped off with a line of tanks in the lead. For two "kilos"

the four lines of Marines were as straight as a die, and their advance

over the open plain in the bright sunlight was a picture I shall never

forget. The fire got hotter and hotter, men fell, bullets sung, shells

whizzed-banged and the dust of battle got thick. Overton was hit by a

big piece of shell and fell. Afterwards I heard he was hit in the heart,

so his death was without pain. He was buried that night and the pin

found.

A man near me was cut in two. Others when hit would stand, it seemed, an

hour, then fall in a heap. I yelled to Wilmer that each gun in the

barrage worked from right to left, then a rabbit ran ahead and I watched

him wondering if he would get hit. Good rabbit--it took my mind off the

carnage. Looked for Hughes way over to the right; told Wilmer that I had

a hundred dollars and be sure to get it. You think all kinds of things.

About sixty Germans jumped out of a trench and tried to surrender, but

their machine guns opened up, we fired back, they ran and our left

company after them. That made a gap that had to be filled, so Sibley

advanced one of his to do the job, then a shell lit in a machine-gun

crew of ours and cleaned it out completely.

At 10.30 we dug in--the attack just died out. I found a hole or old

trench and when I was flat on my back I got some protection. Holcomb was

next to me; Wilmer some way off. We then tried to get reports. Two

companies we never could get in touch with. Lloyd came in and reported

he was holding some trenches near a mill with six men. Cates, with his

trousers blown off, said he had sixteen men of various companies;

another officer on the right reported he had and could see forty men,

all told. That, with the headquarters, was all we could find out about

the battalion of nearly 800. Of the twenty company officers who went in,

three came out, and one, Cates, was slightly wounded.

From then on to about 8 P. M. life was a chance and mighty

uncomfortable. It was hot as a furnace, no water, and they had our range

to a "T." Three men lying in a shallow trench near me were blown to

bits.

I went to the left of the line and found eight wounded men in a shell

hole. I went back to Cates' hole and three shells landed near them. We

thought they were killed, but they were not hit. You could hear men

calling for help in the wheat fields. Their cries would get weaker and

weaker and die out. The German planes were thick in the air; they were

in groups of from three to twenty. They would look us over and then we

would get a pounding. One of our planes got shot down; he fell about a

thousand feet, like an arrow, and hit in the field back of us. The tank

exploded and nothing was left.

We had a machine gun officer with us and at six a runner came up and

reported that Sumner was killed. He commanded the machine-gun company

with us. He was hit early in the fight by a bullet, I hear; I can get no

details. At the start he remarked: "This looks easy--they do not seem to

have much art." Hughes' headquarters were all shot up. Turner lost a

leg.

Well, we just lay there all through the hot afternoon.

It was great--a shell would land near by and you would bounce in your

hole.

As twilight came, we sent out water parties for the relief of the

wounded. Then we wondered if we would get relieved. At 9 o'clock we got

a message congratulating us and saying the Algerians would take over at

midnight. We then began to collect our wounded. Some had been evacuated

during the day, but at that, we soon had about twenty on the field near

us. A man who had been blinded wanted me to hold his hand. Another,

wounded in the back, wanted his head patted, and so it went; one man got

up on his hands and knees. I asked him what he wanted. He said, "Look at

the full moon," then fell dead. I had him buried, and all the rest I

could find. All the time bullets sung and we prayed that shelling would

not start until we had our wounded on top.

The Algerians came up at midnight and we pushed out. They went over at

daybreak and got all shot up. We made the relief under German flares and

the light from a burning town.

We went out as we came, through the gulley and town, the latter by now

all in ruins. The place was full of gas, so we had to wear our masks. We

pushed on to the forest and fell down in our tracks and slept all day.

That afternoon a German plane got a balloon and the observer jumped and

landed in a high tree. It was some job getting him down. The wind came

up and we had to dodge falling trees and branches. As it was, we lost--

two killed and one wounded from that cause.

That night the Germans shelled us and got three killed and seventeen

wounded. We moved a bit further back to the crossroad and after burying

a few Germans, some of whom showed signs of having been wounded before,

we settled down to a short stay.

It looked like rain, and so Wilmer and I went to an old dressing station

to salvage some cover. We collected a lot of bloody shelter halves and

ponchos that had been tied to poles to make stretchers, and were about

to go, when we stopped to look at a new grave. A rude cross made of two

slats from a box had written on it:

"Lester S. Wass, Captain U. S. Marines, July 18, 1918"

The old crowd at St. Nazaire and Bordeaux, Wass and Sumner killed,

Baston and Hunt wounded, the latter on the 18th, a clean wound, I hear,

through the left shoulder. We then moved further to the rear and camped

for the night. Dunlap came to look us over. His car was driven by a

sailor who got out to talk to a few of the marines, when one of the

latter yelled out, "Hey, fellows! Anyone want to see a real live gob,

right this way." The gob held a regular reception. A carrier pigeon

perched on a tree with a message. We decided to shoot him. It was then

quite dark, so the shot missed. I then heard the following as I tried to

sleep: "Hell; he only turned around;" "Send up a flare;" "Call for a

barrage," etc. The next day further to the rear still, a Ford was towed

by with its front wheels on a truck.

We are now back in a town for some rest and to lick our wounds.

As I rode down the battalion, where once companies 250 strong used to

march, now you see fifty men, with a kid second lieutenant in command;

one company commander is not yet twenty-one.

After the last attack I cashed in the gold you gave me and sent it home

along with my back pay. I have no idea of being "bumped off" with money

on my person, as if you fall into the enemy's hands you are first robbed

then buried perhaps, but the first is sure.

Baston, the lieutenant that went to Quantico with father and myself, and

of whom father took some pictures, was wounded in both legs in the Bois

de Belleau. He nearly lost his legs, I am told, but is coming out O. K.

Hunt was wounded in the last attack, got his wounds fixed up and went

back again till he had to be sent out. Coffenburg was hit in the

hand,--all near him were killed. Talbot was hit twice, but is about

again. That accounts for all the officers in the company that I brought

over. In the first fight 103 of the men in that outfit were killed or

wounded. The second fight must have about cleaned out the old crowd.

The tanks, as they crushed their way through the wet, gray forest looked

to me like beasts of the pre-stone age.

In the afternoon as I lay on my back in a hole that I dug deeper, the

dark gray German planes with their sinister black crosses, looked like

Death hovering above. They were for many. Sumner, for one. He was always

saying, "Denig, let's go ashore!" Then here was Wass, whom I usually

took dinner with--dead, too. Sumner, Wass, Baston and Hunt--the old

crowd that stuck together; two dead, one may never be any good any more;

Hunt, I hope, will be as good as ever.

The officers mentioned in Major Denig's letter, with their addresses and

next of kin, are:

Lieutenant Colonel Berton W. Sibley; Harriet E. Sibley, mother; Essex

Junction, Vt.

First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates; Mrs. Willis J. Cates, mother;

Tiptonville. Tenn.

First Lieutenant Horace Talbot, no next of kin; Woonsocket, R.I.

Captain Arthur H. Turner; Charles S. Turner, father, 188 West River St.,

Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

Captain Bailey Metcalf Coffenberg; Mrs. Elizabeth Coffenberg, 30 Jackson

St., Staten Island, N. Y.

Captain Albert Preston Baston; Mrs. Ora Z. Baston, mother; Pleasant

Avenue, St. Louis Park, Minn.

Captain Lester Sherwood Wass; L. A. Wass, father. Gloucester, Mass.

Captain Allen M. Sumner; Mrs. Mary M. Sumner, wife; 1824 S Street, N.

W., Washington, D. C.

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Holcomb; Mrs. Thomas Holcomb, wife, 1535 New

Hampshire Avenue, Washington, D. C.

Second Lieutenant John Laury Hunt; Etta Newman, sister; Gillet, Texas.

Captain Walter H. Sitz; Emil H. Sitz, father; Davenport, Iowa.

First Lieutenant John W. Overton, son of J. M. Overton, 901 Stahlman

Building, Nashville, Tenn.

Major Egbert T. Lloyd; Mrs. E. T. Lloyd, wife; 4900 Cedar Avenue,

Philadelphia, Pa.

Major Ralph S. Keyser; Charles E. Keyser, father; Thoroughfare, Va.

Captain Pere Wilmer; Mrs. Alice Emory Wilmer, mother; Centreville, Md.

Lieutenant Colonel John A. Hughes; Mrs. A. J. Hughes, wife, care of

Rear-Admiral William Parks, Post Office Building, Philadelphia, Pa.

Lieutenant Overton was the famous Yale athlete, the intercollegiate

one-mile champion.

CHAPTER XLIII

ENGLAND AND FRANCE STRIKE IN THE NORTH

Up to July 18, 1918, the Allied armies in France had been steadily on

the defensive, but on that date the tide turned. General Foch, who had

been yielding territory for several months in the great German drives,

now assumed the offensive himself and began the series of great drives

which was to crush the German power and drive the enemy in defeat

headlong from France.

The first of these great blows was the one which began with the

appearance of the Americans at Chateau-Thierry. The Germans had formed a

huge salient whose eastern extremity lay near Rheims, and its western

extremity west of Soissons. It was like a great pocket reaching down in

the direction of Paris from those two points. Against this salient the

French and Americans had directed a tremendous thrust. The Germans

resisted with desperation. It was the turning point of the war, but they

were compelled to yield. Town after town was regained by the French and

American troops, until, by August 5th, the Crown Prince had been driven

from the Marne to the Vesle, and the salient obliterated.

On August 7th General Foch delivered his second blow. During the

fighting on the Marne it had often been wondered by those who were

observing the great French general's strategy, why the British seemed to

make no move. Occasionally there had been reports of minor assaults,

either on the Lys salient, far north, or on the Somme and Montdidier

sectors, lying between. It had not been noticed that in these minor

assaults the English had been obtaining positions of strategic

importance, and that they were steadily getting ready for an English

offensive.

But their time had now come, and on August 7th the armies of Sir Douglas

Haig began an attack against the armies of Prince Rupprecht on the Lys

salient. This was followed, on August 8th, by another still greater

Allied advance in Picardy, between Albert and Montdidier.

Both of these attacks met with notable success. On the Lys salient the

English penetrated a distance of one thousand yards over a four-mile

front, and followed up this advance by persistent attacks which led to

the reoccupation, on August 19th, of Merville, and on August 31st, of

Mont Kemmel. On this front the Germans had weakened their strength by

withdrawing troops to aid other parts of their front, and the British

were constantly taking advantage of this weakening.

The Germans had found this salient a failure. It had failed to attain

its objective, the flanking of the Lens line south. They therefore were

steadily retreating without any intention other than to extricate

themselves from positions of no value, in the most economical manner.

The quick operations of the British, however, led to the capture of many

prisoners and guns.

The English offensive in Picardy was a more serious matter, and from

some points of view was the greatest offensive in the war. The Allied

front had been prepared for offensive operations by minor attacks which

had secured for the Allied troops dominating positions. The attack was a

surprise attack. The Germans were expecting local attacks but not a

movement of this magnitude. The surprise was increased because it was

made through a heavy mist which prevented observation. It was preceded

by tremendous artillery fire which lasted for four minutes, and which

was followed by the charge of infantry and tanks. The German artillery

hardly replied at all, and only the resistance of a few rifles and

machine guns fired vaguely through the fog met the charging troops.

The attack was on a twenty-five-mile front and on the first day gained

seven miles, captured seven thousand men and a hundred guns. On the

following day there was an advance of about five miles and seventeen

thousand more prisoners were captured.

The Germans were now retiring in great haste, blowing up ammunition

dumps and abandoning an enormous quantity of stores of all kinds. The

English were using cavalry and airplanes, which were flying low over the

field and throwing the German troops into confusion. Over three hundred

guns, including many of heavy caliber, were captured. The ground had

been plowed up by shells and thousands of bodies of men and horses were

found lying where they fell. A feature of the attack was the swift

whippet tanks which advanced far ahead of the infantry lines.

[Illustration: Photograph]

Copyright Western Newspaper Union

British Official Photo

FORWARD WITH THE TANKS AGAINST BAPAUME

This picture gives an excellent idea of the method of combined tank

and infantry attack. Behind a low ridge among artillery positions they

are forming their line. A company falls in behind one of the waddling

monsters that will break a way for it through all obstacles, while on

both sides of the road other detachments await the arrival of the tank

they are to accompany.

[Illustration: Photograph: Line of marching soldiers stretching back to

the horizon. Several men resting in the foreground.]

Canadian Official Photograph.

From Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.

CANADIANS IN THE GREAT CAMBRAI DRIVE

One of the busy scenes just preceding the victorious attack by the

Canadians upon Cambrai. In the center can be seen captured Germans

carrying in one of their wounded comrades.

In the French official report occurred the following statement:

"The brilliant operation which we, in concert with British troops,

executed yesterday has been a surprise for the enemy. As occurred in the

offensive of July 18th the soldiers of General Debeney have captured

enemy soldiers engaged in the peaceful pursuit of harvesting the fields

behind the German lines."

By August 10th the Germans had fallen back to a line running through

Chaulnes and Roye. Montdidier had been captured, and eleven German

divisions had been smashed. By August 12th the number of prisoners was

40,000, and by the 18th the Allied front was almost in the same line as

it was in the summer of 1916, before the battle of the Somme.

The next step was to capture Bapaume and Peronne. The French, on August

19th, captured the Lassigny Massif, and continued to press on their

attack. Noyon fell on the 29th, Roye on the 27th, Chaulnes on the 29th.

Further north the British had captured Albert, and on the 29th occupied

Bapaume. On September 1st they took Peronne with two thousand prisoners.

The advance still continued, and the German weakness was becoming more

and more apparent. On September 6th the whole Allied line swept forward,

with an average penetration of eight miles. Chauny was captured and the

fortress of Ham. On September 17th the British were close to St. Quentin

and the French in their own old intrenchments before La Fere. On

September 18th a surprise advance over a twenty-two-mile front crossed

the Hindenburg line at two points north of St. Quentin, Villeret and

from Pontru to Hollom.

The first and third British armies, a little further to the north, were

moving toward Cambrai and Douai, threatening not only them, but to get

in the rear of Lens. This force proceeded up the Albert-Bapaume highway,

and on August 27th captured a considerable portion of the Hindenburg

line. On the 30th they reached Bullecourt and on September 2d crossed

the Drocourt-Queant line on a six-mile-front. This was the famous switch

line, meant to supplement the Hindenburg line and its capture meant the

complete overthrow of the German intrenched positions at this point.

[Illustration: MAP: Arras in the Southwest corner, Douai in the

Northeast.]

THE FAMOUS HINDENBURG LINE THAT CRUMBLED IN 1918.

The Germans retreated hastily to the Canal du Nord, and on September 3d

Queant was captured by an advance on a twenty mile front, along with ten

thousand prisoners. The Allied forces were moving steadily forward. On

September 18th the British reached the defenses of Cambrai and were

encircling the city of St. Quentin. On October 3d the advance upon

Cambrai forced the Germans to evacuate the Lens coal fields, and on

October 9th another advance over a thirty-mile front enabled the Allies

to occupy Cambrai and St. Quentin. On the 11th they had reached the

suburbs of Douai. By this time the whole of the Picardy salient had been

wiped out.

The preceding summary of this great movement gives little idea of the

tremendous struggle which had gone on during these two critical months,

and hardly does more than suggest the tremendous importance of the

British operations. The Hindenburg line was like a great fortification,

and for more than a year had been regarded as impregnable. At Bullecourt

there were two main lines. One hundred and twenty-five yards in front of

the first line was a belt of wire twenty-five feet broad, so thick that

it could not be seen through. The line itself contained double

machine-gun emplacements of ferro-concrete, one hundred and twenty-five

yards apart, with lesser emplacements between them. More belts of wire

protected the support line. Here a continuous tunnel had been

constructed at a depth of over forty feet. Every thirty-five yards there

were exits with flights of forty-five steps. The tunnels were roofed

and lined and bottomed with heavy timber, and numerous rooms branched

off. They were lighted by electricity. Large nine-inch trench mortars

stood at the traverses and strong machine-gun positions covered the line

from behind.

The Hindenburg line was really only one of a series of twenty lines,

each connected with the others by communicating trenches. The main lines

were solid concrete, separated by an unending vista of wire

entanglements. At points this barrier barbed wire extended in solid

formation for ten miles. This tremendous system of defenses was

originally called by the Germans the Siegfried line, and in the spring

of 1917 they found it wise, at points where a strong offensive was

expected, to fall back to it for protection. It had been their hope that

it would prove an impassable barrier to the Allied troops, but now it

had been broken, and the moral effect of the British success was even

greater than the material.

One of the most noticeable results of the British advance had been the

capture of Lens. It had been captured without a fight, because of the

British threat upon its rear, but its capture was of tremendous

importance. Lens had been the scene of bitter fighting in the latter

part of August, 1917, when the Canadians had specially distinguished

themselves. This city had been heavily fortified by the Germans who had

recognized its importance as being the center of the great Lens coal

fields, and they had never given it up. It had sometimes been described

as the strongest single position that had ever confronted the Allies on

the western front. It had been made a sort of citadel of reinforced

concrete. Even the courage and power of the Canadians had only given

them possession of some of its suburbs. Between these suburbs and the

concrete citadel were the coal pits, with their fathomless depths of

ages and the mysteries of kultural strategy. The struggle became a

succession of avalanches of gas, burning oil, rifle and machine-gun

fire. Both sides lost terrifically, but the Germans had held the town.

Now it was given up without a blow and its great coal fields were once

more in possession of the French. Before retreating the Germans showed

their usual destructive energy and the mines were found flooded as a

result of consistent and scientific use of dynamite.

The recapture of Lens was cheering news in Paris. Not the least of the

many sufferings of the French during the last two years of the war was

that which came from the scarcity of coal. Indeed, more than once during

those two winters coal could not be obtained at any price. These periods

unfortunately came in the latter part of the winter, and it happened

they were unusual periods of intense cold. Thousands of people stayed in

bed all day in order to keep warm. The capture of Lens, therefore, had

been anxiously desired. Nearly the whole of the French coal supply had

come from Lens and the adjacent Bethune coal fields. The Bethune field,

although steadily working, had never produced enough coal for even the

pressing necessities of the French munition works.

The news that Bapaume had fallen on August 29th brought back, especially

to the British, memories not only of the previous year and of the great

forward movement which, on March 17th, had swept them over Bapaume and

Peronne, but also bitter memories of the retreat in the previous March,

which had carried them back under the overwhelming German pressure. The

capture therefore was balm to their spirits, and an English

correspondent, Mr. Philip Gibbs, who had accompanied the British on

their previous advance, found officers and men full of laughter and full

of memories.

On all sides were the battle-fields of 1916 and 1917; Mametz Wood,

Belleville Wood, Usna Hill, Ginchy, Morval, Guillemont. The fields were

covered with battle debris, and yet to the English it was sacred ground

from the graves of the men who fell there. Those graves still remained.

The British shell fire had not touched them, but as the English advanced

there were many bodies of gray-clad men on the roads and fields, and

dead horses, and a litter of barbed wire, and deep shelters dug under

banks, and shell craters, and helmets, gas masks, and rifles thrown here

and there by the enemy as they fled. Now it was the Germans that were

fleeing, and fleeing hopelessly, sullen, bitter at their officers,

impatient of discipline.

One of the great differences between the attacks of the Allies in their

last year of the war and those of preceding years, was the increased use

and the improved character of the tanks. The tanks were a development of

the war. Before the war, however, the development of the caterpillar

tractor had suggested to a few farsighted people the possibility of

evolving from this invention a machine capable of offensive use over

rough country in close warfare. Experiments were made in behalf of the

English War Office for some time without practical results.

At last, after these experiments had resulted in various failures, a

type of tractor was finally designed which produced satisfactory

results. It was a caterpillar tractor, with an endless self-laid track,

over which internal driving wheels could be propelled by the engines. It

was not until July, 1916, that the first consignment of these new

engines of warfare arrived at the secret maneuver ground.

There were two kinds. One called the male was armed with two Hotchkiss

quick-fire guns, as well as with an armament of machine guns. The other

type, called the female, was armed only with machine guns. The male tank

was designed for dealing with the concrete emplacements for the German

machine guns. The other was more suitable for dealing with machine-gun

personnel and riflemen. Some time was taken in training men to use these

tanks, for the crew of a tank must suffer a great deal of hardship on

account of the noise of the engine every command had to be made by

signs, and the motion of the tank being like that of a ship on a heavy

sea, was likely to produce seasickness.

The tanks were painted with weird colors for the purpose of concealment,

and when they first appeared caused a great deal of wonder and

amusement. They were first used in battle on September 15, 1916, in a

continuation of the battle of the Somme, and proved a great surprise to

the Germans. The Germans directed all available rifle and machine-gun

fire upon them without success. A correspondent narrates that: "As the

'Creme de Menthe' moved on its way, the bullets fell from its sides

harmlessly. It advanced upon a broken wall, leaned up against it

heavily, until it fell with a crash of bricks, and then rose on to the

bricks and passed over them and walked straight into the midst of

factory ruins." They were an immense success and had come to stay.

CHAPTER XLIV

BELGIUM'S GALLANT EFFORT

For more than four years Belgium suffered under the iron heel of the

German invaders. One little corner in the far west was occupied by her

gallant army, fighting with the utmost courage and a patriotism which

has won the admiration of the world under its great King Albert, whose

heroic leadership had turned the little commercial nation into a nation

of heroes. Conditions of life in the Belgian cities were almost

intolerable. The great Belgian Relief Commission, under the direction of

Mr. Hoover, had kept the people from starvation, but it could not secure

them their rights. They lived in the midst of brutality and injustice.

On Belgian Independence Day at London, Arthur J. Balfour, the British

Foreign Minister, made an address in which he commented upon the German

treatment of Belgium. In the course of his address he said: "Bitter must

be the thought in every Belgian heart of what Belgians in Belgium are

now suffering. Let them however, take courage. Let their spirits rise in

a mood of profound cheerfulness, for these dark days are not going to

last forever, and when they come to a conclusion, when again peace dawns

upon this much tormented and cruelly tried world, when Belgium is again

free and prosperous, then Belgians, whether they have spent these

unhappy years in exile, or, an even harder fate, have spent them in

their own country, they will be able to look back upon this time of

cruel and unexampled trial, and they will say to themselves, to their

children and to their descendants, that Belgium, though her existence as

a political entity is less than a century, has within that period shown

an example of courage, constancy and virtue to mankind for which all the

world should be grateful."

The English Foreign Minister was perhaps not prophesying. He knew

something of what was coming. The Great Offensive which was to free

Belgium of her German oppressor was already under way. The first move,

however, was not upon land, but upon the sea. In the autumn of 1914 the

little Belgian port of Zeebrugge, with the neighboring port of Ostend,

was captured by the Germans. The Germans, who had already seized the

shipbuilding plants at Antwerp, then began to build submarines, and sent

them down the canals through Bruges to Zeebrugge and Ostend. From these

ports they proceeded to attack the English commerce.

In the spring of 1918 submarine attacks on English shipping were so

serious that England was using every possible effort to destroy these

piratical craft, and it was determined to make an attempt to block the

entrances to the canals at Zeebrugge and at Ostend, by sinking old ships

in the channels.

The expedition took place during the night of April 22d, under the

command of Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Keyes. Six obsolete British cruisers

took part in the expedition. These were the Brilliant, Iphigenia,

Sirius, Intrepid, Thetis and Vindictive. The Vindictive carried storming

parties to destroy the stone mole at Zeebrugge; the remaining five

cruisers were filled with concrete, and it was intended that they should

be sunk in the entrances of the two ports. A large force of monitors and

small fast craft accompanied the expedition. An observer thus describes

the heroic exploit:

The night was overcast and there was a drifting haze. Down the coast a

great searchlight swung its beam to and fro in the small wind and short

sea. From the Vindictive's bridge, as she headed in toward the mole,

there was scarcely a glimmer of light to be seen shoreward. Ahead as she

drove through the water rolled the smoke screen, her cloak of

invisibility, wrapped about her by small craft. This was the device of

Wing-Commander Brock, without which, acknowledged the Admiral in

command, the operation could not have been conducted. A northeast wind

moved the volume of it shoreward ahead of the ships. Beyond it was the

distant town, its defenders unsuspicious.

It was not until the Vindictive, with bluejackets and marines standing

ready for landing, was close upon the mole, that the wind lulled and

came away again from the southeast, sweeping back the smoke screen and

laying her bare to eyes that looked seaward, There was a moment

immediately afterward when it seemed to those on the ships as if the dim

harbor exploded into light. A star shell soared aloft, then a score of

star shells. Wavering beams of the searchlights swung around and settled

into a glare. A wild fire of gun flashes leaped against the sky; strings

of luminous green beads shot aloft, hung and sank. The darkness of the

night was supplemented by a nightmare daylight of battle-fired guns, and

machine guns along the mole. The batteries ashore woke to life.

It was in a gale of shelling that the Vindictive laid her nose against

the thirty-foot-high concrete side of the mole, let go her anchor, and

signaled to the Daffodil to shove her stern in. The Iris went ahead and

endeavored to get alongside likewise.

The fire was intense while the ships plunged and rolled beside the mole

in the seas, the Vindictive, with her greater draft, jarring against the

foundations of the mole with every lunge. They were swept diagonally by

machine-gun fire from both ends of the mole and by the heavy batteries

on shore. Captain Carpenter conned the Vindictive from the open bridge

until her stern was laid in, when he took up his position in the flame

thrower hut on the port side. It is marvelous that any occupant should

have survived a minute in this hut, so riddled and shattered was it.

The officer of the Iris, which was in trouble ahead of the Vindictive,

described Captain Carpenter as handling her like a picket boat. The

Vindictive was fitted along her port side with a high, false deck, from

which ran eighteen brows, or gangways, by which the storming and

demolition parties were to land. The men gathered in readiness on the

main lower decks, while Colonel Elliott, who was to lead the marines,

waited on the false deck just abaft the bridge. Captain Hallahan, who

commanded the bluejackets, was amidships. The word for the assault had

not yet been given when both leaders were killed.

The mere landing on the mole was a perilous business. It involved a

passage across the crashing and splintering gangways, a drop over the

parapet into the field of fire of the German machine-guns which swept

its length, and a further drop of some sixteen feet to the surface of

the mole itself. Many were killed and more wounded as they crowded up

the gangways, but nothing hindered the orderly and speedy landing by

every gangway. The lower deck was a shambles, as the commander made the

round of the ship, yet the wounded and dying raised themselves to cheer

as he made his tour.

The Iris had trouble of her own. Her first attempts to make fast to the

mole ahead of the Vindictive failed, as her grapnels were not large

enough to span the parapet. Two officers, Lieutenant-Commander Bradford,

and Lieutenant Hawkins, climbed ashore and sat astride the parapet

trying to make the grapnels fast, till each was killed, and fell down

between the ship and the wall. Commander Valentine Gibbs had both legs

shot away, and died next morning. Lieutenant Spencer though wounded,

took command and refused to be relieved.

[Illustration: Layout of harbor; North sea at top, with lighthouse, quay

and wireless station. Foreground shows harbor facilities and submarine

pens.]

ZEEBRUGGE HARBOR, BLOCKED BY BRITISH

The Iris was obliged at last to change her position and fall in astern

of the Vindictive, which suffered very heavily from fire. Her total

casualties were eight officers and sixty-nine men killed, and three

officers and 103 men wounded.

The storming parties upon the mole met with no resistance from the

Germans other than an intense and unremitting fire. One after another

buildings burst into flames, or split and crumbled as dynamite went off.

A bombing party working up toward the mole in search of the enemy

destroyed several machine gun emplacements but not a single prisoner

awarded them. It appears that upon the approach of the ships and with

the opening of fire the enemy simply retired and contented themselves

with bringing machine guns to the short end of the mole.

The object of the fighting on the mole was in large part to divert the

enemy's attention while the work of blocking the canals was being

accomplished.

Of this operation the official narrative says: "The Thetis came first

steaming into a tornado of shells from great batteries ashore. All her

crew save a remnant who remained to steam her in and sink her, already

had been taken off her by a ubiquitous motor launch. The remnant spared

hands enough to keep her four guns going. It was hers to show the road

to the Intrepid and Iphigenia which followed. She cleared a string of

armed barges, which defends the channel from the tip of the mole, but

had the ill-fortune to foul one of her propellers upon a net defense

which flanks it on the shore side. The propeller gathered in the net and

it rendered her practically unmanageable. Shore batteries found her and

pounded her unremittingly. She bumped into the bank, edged off and found

herself in the channel again, still some hundreds of yards from the

mouth of the canal in practically a sinking condition. As she lay she

signaled invaluable directions to others, and her commander blew charges

and sank it. Motor launches took off her crew. The Intrepid, smoking

like a volcano, and with all her guns blazing, followed. Her motor

launch had failed to get alongside, outside the harbor, and she had men

enough for anything. Straight into the canal she steered, her smoke

blowing back from her into the Iphigenia's eyes so that the latter was

blinded, and going a little wild, ran into the dredger, with her barge

moored beside it, which lay at the western arm of the canal. She was not

clear though, and entered the canal, pushing the barge before her.

"It was then that a shell hit the steam connections of her whistle and

the escape of steam which followed drove off some of the smoke, and let

her see what she was doing. Lieutenant Carter, commanding the Intrepid,

placed the nose of his ship neatly on the mud of the western bank,

ordered his crew away, and blew up his ship by switches in the chart

room. Lieutenant Leake, commanding the Iphigenia, beached her according

to arrangement on the eastern side, blew her up, saw her drop nicely

across the canal, and left her with her engines still going to hold her

in position till she should have bedded well down on the bottom.

According to the latest reports from air observation the two old ships,

with their holds full of concrete, are lying across the canal in a

V-position, and it is probable that the work they set out to do has been

accomplished and that the canal is effectively blocked."

At Ostend an attempt was also made to block the canal on the same night,

but it was unsuccessful owing to a shift of wind which blew away the

smoke screen behind which the British craft were acting, and enabled the

German gun fire to destroy the flares which had been lit to mark the

entrance to the harbor. The cruisers tried to act by guess work, and one

of the block ships was sunk, but it was not in a position to obstruct

the canal.

On May 9th another attempt was made, and the Vindictive, filled with

concrete was sunk in the Ostend channel.

This daring exploit of the English fleet, though it had destroyed the

value of Zeebrugge and Ostend as submarine bases, had left the Germans

in possession. In September, however, General Foch determined that the

time had come to throw his armies against the German forces in the

distracted little country. He planned two widely separated thrusts. On

the south he sent Pershing against the Germans between the Argonne and

the Meuse. They made rapid progress, capturing Montfaucon, Varennes and

driving on until they had destroyed the German control of the

Paris-Chalons-Verdun Railroad.

This was a serious blow to the Germans, for a further push northward

would cut the vital lateral railway connecting the German armies in

Belgium and France with those in Alsace-Lorraine. Ludendorf hastened

reserves to this front, and the American operation was slowed down.

Meanwhile at the other end of the line the Belgians, with General

Plumer's Second British Army, suddenly attacked on a front which

extended all the way from the canal at Dixmude to the Lys, swept the

Germans out of all the famous fighting ground of the Ypres salient,

pushed across the Passchendaele Ridge and down into the Flanders plain

below.

The situation of the Germans in the Lille regions of the south and also

along the Belgian coast became at once dangerous. Once more Ludendorf

was compelled to send reserves, and this thrust began to slow up but it

was not checked permanently, and the Belgian armies were to move on.

While this advance was being conducted the British fleet were bombarding

the coastal defenses. The Belgian army, fighting with the utmost spirit

under command of King Albert, made a penetration of five miles and

captured four thousand prisoners and an immense amount of supplies.

On September 30th they captured the city of Roulers. For ten days there

was a consolidation of position by the Allies, but on October 14th they

made a furious attack in the general direction of Ghent and Courtrai.

Thousands of prisoners and several complete batteries of guns were

captured. In this attack British, Belgian and French troops took part,

and the troops of the three nations went over the top without

preliminary bombardment, taking the enemy by surprise.

On October 15th the news from Flanders showed that the victory was

growing in extent, the Allied armies were advancing on a front of about

twenty-five miles, and in some places had penetrated the enemy's

positions six or seven miles. The Belgians had captured seven thousand

prisoners and the British and French about four thousand. In French

Flanders the British advanced to a point about three miles west of

Lille.

The battle was carried on in a heavy rain which turned the battle-fields

into seas of mud; while this hampered the Allied troops it hindered even

more the Germans in trying to move away their material through the mired

ground of the Flanders Lowland.

On the next day dispatches indicated that a retreat on a tremendous

scale in northern Belgium was under way. The Germans were retreating so

fast that the Allies lost touch with the enemy. The gallant little

Belgian army, assisted by crack British and French troops, had driven

the despoilers of its country from a large section which the Germans had

occupied since the early days of the war, and had gained positions of

such importance as to make it probable that the Germans would have to

abandon the entire coast of Belgium.

Moreover, on the south, the city of Lille, with the great mining and

manufacturing districts around it, was being left in a salient which was

growing deeper every hour and which the enemy could not hope to hold. At

certain points the resistance of the Germans was extraordinarily fierce.

This was especially true in the region of Thouret. The battle here was

from street to street and from house to house. The Germans had placed

machine-guns in the windows of houses and cellars and fired murderous

streams of bullets into the advancing Belgians but were unable to stop

them.

The Belgians fought with a dogged determination such as only troops

fighting to regain their outraged country could display. Nothing could

stop them. At other points, especially in the northern part of the

battle area, the Germans surrendered freely. Many civilians were rescued

from the towns and districts captured, and little processions of these

were straggling rearward out of range of the guns, and out of the way of

the fighting troops. At times liberated Belgian women could see their

sons, brothers or husbands going forward into battle. On October 17th

the German retreat in Flanders became a rout. The enemy were fleeing

rapidly on their entire front. The British entered Lille.

The Germans fled from Ostend and British naval forces were landed there.

The Belgian infantry were sweeping up the coast, and Belgian patrols

entered Bruges. In the afternoon of the day King Albert of Belgium, and

Queen Elizabeth entered Ostend. The splendid fighting of the Belgian

troops and their magnificent victory was now attracting universal

attention. It was one of the revelations of the war. They were bearing

the giant's share of the work of the Allied armies in their own country,

and had already liberated territory which more than doubled the area of

that part of Belgium which had been in their possession.

With the Belgian coast cleared of invaders it became open to British

transports which would afford relief to the whole Allied armies from the

resultant decrease in the congestion of the channel ports. On October

19th the progress continued. Zeebrugge was occupied by the Allies, the

last Belgian port remaining in German hands.

The Belgian advance continued along the whole line. King Albert entered

Bruges. Day after day the advance continued. The reception of the King

and Queen of Belgium in the recovered towns was something to remember.

In Bruges they rode in amid the tumultuous cheering of the frenzied

population. On the central square they were received by the burgomaster

with an escort of a solitary gendarme, who had refused to give up his

uniform and old-fashioned rifle to the enemy; though fined and

imprisoned he had kept their hiding place secret. As he stood there

alone with fixed bayonet the King and the Queen shook him by the hand

and congratulated him. Greatly moved, he stammered, "It is too great an

honor, too great an honor."

And with all this happiness came the happiness arising from the return

of the soldiers to the homes from which they had been absent so long,

the reunions of husband and wife, of parents and children. Belgium was

now to reap the reward for her heroism.

CHAPTER XLV

ITALY'S TERRIFIC DRIVE

For many months after the great Italian stand on the Piave there was

inactivity on both fronts in Italy. The Italians had been reinforced by

troops from France and Great Britain and their own army was now larger

than it had been at any other time. On June 15th, about the time when

the Germans were being driven back on the Marne and the Oise, the

Austrians, urged to action by the Germans, suddenly undertook a great

offensive on a front from the Asiago Plateau to the sea, a distance of

ninety-seven miles.

From the very start it was plain that the Italians were resisting

magnificently. The offensive was not unexpected, either in time or

locality, and had been openly discussed in the Italian press. The

Italians therefore were not taken by surprise, and moreover since the

disaster of Caparetto the Italians had learned by a patient campaign of

education what they were fighting for.

On the second day of the battle the Austrian troops made a desperate

effort to break through the Italian lines, particularly in the eastern

sector of the Asiago Plateau, and crossed the Piave River at two places.

They also attacked the French positions between Osteria di Monfenera and

Maranzine, but were driven back with heavy loss. At every point where

the Austrians were able to advance the Italians initiated vigorous

counter-attacks. The order to Italy's army was, "Hold at any cost."

On the third day of the battle the Austrian offensive was being strongly

checked. They had established three bridgeheads on the Piave, but had

not been able to advance. The most notable of these crossings was that

in the Montello sector. Montello is of particular importance, because it

is the hinge between the mountains and the Piave sectors of the Italian

front. If it could be held the Austrians would be in a position to

dominate from the flank and rear all the Italian positions defending the

line of the Piave in the dead flat plain to the south.

[Illustration: Painting]

STORMING THE MOLE AT ZEEBRUGGE

One of the most brilliant and spectacular feats in naval history was

the British blocking of the submarine harbor at Zeebrugge. The picture

shows one of the detachments of marines that braved the terrific

German defense fire and swarmed up the mole that protects the harbor,

planting explosives that made a great breach and let the tides in.

[Illustration: Photograph]

ITALIAN TROOPS TREKKING THE SNOW-FIELDS OF THE ALPS

The Alpine troops of the Italian army have for years developed a

military technique peculiar to the regions they must cover. Here a

battalion of Alpini is seen on skis, the best method for traveling

over the frozen snow crusts of the mountain region.

On the Lower Piave the Austrians had made gains and had captured Capo

Sile. The Austrians were using a million men and were using liquid fire

and gas bombs, but their every move was resisted strongly. Vienna was

claiming the capture of 30,000 men, but the Italian reports claimed that

the Austrian losses were stupendous. Thousands of dead were heaped

before the Italian line in the mountain sectors, blocking the mule paths

and choking the defiles. No fewer than nine desperate onslaughts upon

Monte Grappa, always with fresh reserves, were broken upon Grappa

heights, with terrific losses.

On July 19th the dispatches from Rome were emphasizing the Italian

counter-attacks. Not only were the Italians preventing the enemy from

making further gains, but they were beginning to crowd him back at the

points where he had crossed the river, and were raining bombs and

machine-gun bullets upon the Austrian troops at the bridgehead. They

were also taking the initiative in the fighting in the mountain sectors.

By June 20th the Austrian defeat was clear. Their forces were backed

against the flooded Piave, which had carried away their bridges and left

them to the mercy of the Italians. Thousands were being killed and other

thousands captured. Czecho-Slovak troops, it was reported, had joined in

the fighting, and had given their first tribute of blood to the generous

principles of freedom and independence for which they were in arms. In

the Piave delta the Italians had regained Capo Sile, which had been

captured early in the drive, and it was reported that all along the

Piave line they had won complete control of the air, not a single

Austrian machine being still aloft. The spirits of the Austrian troops

had been definitely weakened. They were war wearied, and evidence began

to accumulate that Austria's drive was a "hunger offensive."

As the battle continued reports began to arrive of the gallant deeds of

American airmen, who were helping in the fighting along the front. The

airmen were assisting in destroying the bridges that the Austrians were

trying to throw across the river. The Piave was now a vast cataract and

the bridges which it had not washed down were constantly destroyed by

the aviators. The Austrians on the western bank were finding it

difficult to obtain supplies and were resorting to hydroplanes for that

purpose. On June 24th the Austrian attack had definitely failed and they

were fleeing in disorder across the Piave. One hundred and eighty

thousand men had already been lost and forty thousand were hemmed in on

the western side of the river. The Austrian communications were

emphasizing the difficulties they were meeting with through the heavy

rains.

The victory of the Italians, which was now apparent, was received all

over Italy with great public rejoicing. Italy had been repenting in

sackcloth and ashes her defeat of the previous fall. Now they had made

amends and were showing what the Italian soldier could really do. In

America, and among the Allied Powers, there was great enthusiasm, and

Secretary of War Baker sent this congratulatory message to the Italian

Minister of War:

Your Excellency: The people of the United States are watching with

enthusiasm and admiration the splendid exploits of the great army of

Italy in resisting and driving back the enemy forces which recently

undertook a major offensive on the Italian front. I take great pleasure

in tendering my own hearty congratulations, and would be most happy to

have a message of greeting and congratulation transmitted to General

Diaz and his brave soldiers.

NEWTON D. BAKER,

Secretary of War of the United States.

In announcing to his victorious army the repulse of the Austrians

General Diaz, the Italian Commander-in-Chief, said:

"The enemy who, with furious impetuosity, used all means to penetrate

our territory has been repulsed at all points. His losses are very

heavy. His pride is broken. Glory to all commands, all soldiers, all

sailors."

On the 26th of June the Italian troops, having forced the last rear

guard of the retreating Austrians to surrender and completely occupied

the west bank of the Piave, began an offensive on the mountain front in

the Monte Grappa sector. They gained more than 3,000 prisoners, and

considerable territory. On the southern part of the Piave front they

were carrying on a vigorous offensive against the Austrian positions

within the Piave delta. The Austrian troops, at that point, were being

prevented from retreat by the high water, and suffered terrible losses.

On July 6th the Italians drove the last of the enemy from the delta.

The campaign in Italy now languished, until, on October 27th, Italy

began her last terrible drive. The great Italian offensive was made not

only by their own forces and the French and British troops, which had

assisted them the previous June, but during the intervening period a

large force of Americans had arrived in Italy. On June 27th Secretary

Baker had made the announcement that General Pershing had been

instructed to send into Italy a regiment that was then in training in

France. The regiment thus sent was augmented considerably later. The

purpose of sending troops to Italy, Mr. Baker explained, was rather

political than military. It was desired to demonstrate again that the

Allied nations and the United States were one in their purposes on all

fronts, and to extend the intercourse between the troops of all the

powers at war with Germany.

On the second day of the Italian offensive their success increased. More

than nine thousand Austrians were taken prisoners and fifty-one guns

were captured. The Piave River had been crossed, and the Italians had

advanced four miles to its east. The attacks in the mountain region were

being more bitterly contested, and counter-attacks had enabled the enemy

to regain some of their lost positions.

On October 30th the Italian advance was continuing. The Austrian front

appeared to be breaking under the heavy blows of the Allied troops.

Dispatches indicated striking successes, not only on the Italian front

but at the points where the British and the French were holding the

line. The Americans were being held in reserve, but American airplanes

were actively participating in the work at the front. By this time the

last lines of the Austro-Hungarian resistance on the central positions

along the Piave River had been broken, and more than fifteen thousand

prisoners been taken. The Austrians, however, had been desperately

resisting, and their artillery fire at many points was very effective,

especially that which had been directed at the pontoon bridges thrown

across the Piave.

King Victor Emanuel had been present in person during the crossing, and

was often under the fire of the Austrian guns. On October 30th, 33,000

Austrians had been captured and the Italians had reached Vittorio.

Americans had now joined in the fighting.

The Austrian retreat reached the proportion of a rout. They were still

fighting, especially in the mountain region, but in the plains east of

the Piave they were in full flight. Taking into consideration the

numbers of troops in the Austrian lines and their apparently plentiful

supplies, it began to seem probable that their break was due more to

political maneuvers than to military force. The Austrians at this time

were making a great peace drive, and the dissatisfaction at home had

affected the morale of the troops at the front. The conditions in Italy

were in close resemblance to those in Bulgaria just before Bulgaria

applied for an armistice.

On the 1st of November the Austrians were completely routed, and were

streaming in confusion down the valleys of the Alpine foothills, and

fleeing northward from the Piave. Reports from Austria indicated riots

at Vienna and Budapest. In Vienna people were parading the streets,

shouting "Down with the Hapsburgs!" On October 29th, the Austrians asked

for an armistice. Their announcement read as follows:

The High Command of the armies, early Tuesday, by means of a

Parliamentaire, established communication with the Italian army command.

Every effort is to be made for the avoidance of further useless

sacrifice of blood, for the cessation of hostilities, and the conclusion

of an armistice. Toward this step which is animated by the best

intentions the Italian High Command at first assumed an attitude of

unmistakable refusal, and it was only on the evening of Wednesday that,

in accord with the Italian High Command, General Weber, accompanied by a

deputation, was permitted to cross the fighting line for preliminary

pourparlers.

General Diaz, the Italian Commander, had referred the Austrian request

to the Versailles Conference, and had acted in accordance with their

direction. In proposing the armistice the Austrians had also expressed

their resolve to bring about peace and to evacuate the occupied

territory of Italy. This was the beginning of the end.

The northern part of Italy is bounded by the Alps, and between those

lofty ranges and the deep valleys there had been constant fighting. In

this fighting, both on mountain and in valley, there were the most

extraordinary deeds of individual heroism, constantly exhibited.

The Alpine regiments, known in Italy as the Alpini, were men of

extraordinary physical powers, accustomed to mountain climbing, and

filled with courage and patriotism. Owing to the nature of the territory

in such contests, only a limited number of men could be used at one

time, and the fighting went on over masses of snow or solid rock. Guns

were hauled up precipices and dugouts excavated in the rock itself. The

Italian troops, clothed in white overalls to prevent their being seen,

moved with great rapidity from point to point, and forced their enemy to

keep constantly on the alert. In the great Italian drive just described

the most bitter fighting was that which occurred in these mountainous

regions.

The work of the Italian aviators is also worthy of special attention.

They not only secured entire command of the air, but by flying low they

often threw into confusion with their machine guns the Austrian

infantry. Their wonderful work in bringing in military information, and

in bombing expeditions, was not excelled, if it was equaled, by the

airmen of any other country. The Italian airplanes themselves were

engineering triumphs. The inventive genius so notable in these days in

Italy found expression in their development. Some of their machines were

the biggest made during the whole war, and the long journeys made by

such machines deserve special mention. The most interesting feat of this

kind was performed on August 9th by the famous poet, Captain Gabrielle

D'Annunzio. Accompanied by eight Italian machines, he flew to the city

of Vienna, a total distance of 620 miles, and dropped copies of an

Allied manifesto over the city. They crossed the Alps in a great wind

storm at a height of ten thousand feet, and all but one returned safely.

The manifesto, which was written by D'Annunzio reads as follows:

People of Vienna, you are fated to know the Italians. We are flying over

Vienna and could drop tons of bombs. On the contrary we leave a

salutation and the flag with its colors of liberty. We Italians do not

make war on children, the aged and women. We make war on your

government, which is the enemy of the liberty of nations,--on your

blind, wanton, cruel government, which gives you neither peace nor

bread, and nurtures you on hatred and delusions. People of Vienna, you

have the reputation of being intelligent, why then do you wear the

Prussian uniform? Now you see the entire world is against you, do you

wish to continue the war? Keep on, then, but it will be your suicide.

What can you hope from the victory promised to you by the Prussian

generals? Their decisive victory is like the bread of the Ukraine,--one

dies while awaiting it. People of Vienna, think of your dear ones,

awake! Long live Italy, Liberty and the Entente!

It was said that copies of this proclamation in Vienna had a value of

fifty dollars a copy. D'Annunzio's great fame had seized upon the

popular imagination. His career in the war would have been interesting

in itself, but when one recognizes that he was already a world figure,

the greatest modern Italian dramatist and novelist, his life seems

almost like a fairy story. Before the war began he made addresses all

over his country, urging Italy's participation in the war, and when war

was declared, to him, as much as to any other man, was due the credit.

He entered the navy, and has written some fascinating descriptions of

his life on board ship. Later he joined the airplane corps, and now was

showering down upon the gaping populace of Vienna appeals to rise

against its Hapsburg masters. D'Annunzio was extraordinary in his

literary career. He had been the poet of passion, a writer of novels and

plays, which, although artistic in the highest degree, showed him to be

an egotist and a decadent. But long before the war he had tired of his

erotic productions and had begun to write the praises of Nature and of

heroes. He had been singing the praises of his country. "La Nave"

symbolizes the glory of Venice. He had become more wholesome. War was

making him not only a man but a hero.

Of course D'Annunzio was not the only great literary man who had left

the study for the battle-field. AEschylus fought at Marathon and

Salamis; Ariosto put down a rebellion for his prince between composition

of cantos of Orlando Furioso; Sir Philip Sydney was scholar, poet and

soldier, and many a soldier when his wars were over has turned to the

labors of the pen. Yet it is not without surprise that one sees

D'Annunzio join this distinguished company, and one's admiration grows

as it becomes plain that he was not a mere poseur. He was a poet, but he

was a soldier too. Not every great poet could drive an airplane to

Vienna.

CHAPTER XLVI

BULGARIA DESERTS GERMANY