Part 6

_In describing the artillery fire which broke up a threatened assault on May 5, Mr. Gibbs wrote:_

A new German division, the 52d Reserve, and the 56th German Division prepared an assault on Ridge Wood. All these men were crowded into narrow assembly grounds and did not have quiet hours before the moment of attack. They had hours of carnage in the darkness. British and French guns were answering back the German bombardment with their heaviest fire. French howitzers, long-muzzled fellows, which during recent weeks I had seen crawling through Flanders with the cornflowers, as the French soldiers call themselves, crowded about them on the gun limbers and transport wagons and muddy horses, and which had traveled long kilometers, were now in action from their emplacements between the ruined villages of the Flemish war zone, and with their little brothers, the soixante-quinzes, their blood-thirsty little brothers, were savage in their destruction and harassing fire.

I have seen the soixante-quinze at work and have heard the rafale des tambours de la mort--the ruffle of the drums of death--as the sound of their fire is described by all soldier writers of France. It was that fire, that slashing and sweeping fire, which helped to break up any big plan of attack against the French troops yesterday morning, and from those assembly places a great part of the German infantry never moved all day, but spent their time, it seems, in carrying back their wounded.

Tragic Desolation of Arras

_Mr. Gibbs on May 11 described a visit to Arras, as follows:_

Since the beginning of these great battles in bleak, cold weather Spring has come, and almost Summer, changing all the aspect of the old battlefields and of the woods behind craterland and of the cities under fire.

I went into one of those cities the other day, Arras, which to me and to many of us out here is a queerly enchanted place because of its beauty, which survives even three years of bombardment, and because of the many great memories which it holds in its old houses and streets and the sense of romance which lurks in its courtyards and squares, reaching back to ancient history before its death. For Arras is dead and but the beautiful corpse of the city that was once very fair and noble.

During the recent weeks the enemy has flung many big explosive shells into it, so that its ruins have become more ruined and many houses hardly touched before have now been destroyed. It was sad to see this change, the fresh mangling of stones that had already been scarred, the heaps of masonry that lay piled about these streets that were utterly deserted. I walked down many of them and saw no living soul, only a few lean cats which prowled about, slinking close to the walls and crouching when a German shell came over with a rending noise.

Bright sunlight shone down these streets, putting a lazy glamour upon their broken frontages and flinging back shadows from high walls, except where shell holes let in the light. The cathedral and the great Palace of the Bishops were unroofed, with tall pillars broken off below the vaulting and an avalanche of white masonry about them. They were clear-cut and dazzling under the blue sky, and one was hushed by the tragic grandeur of these ruins.

One of the British airplanes flew low over the city, and its engine sang loudly with a vibrant humming, and now and again the crash of a gun or a shell loosened some stones or plaster below its wings. Other birds were singing. Spring birds, who are not out for war but sweethearting in the gardens of Arras.

America's Sacrifice

By Harold Begbie

[By arrangement with The London Chronicle.]

One of the finest moral actions in this war has been done by America. It is action on a gigantic scale, and yet of a directly personal character. Insufficient publicity, I think, has been given to this action.

Is it realized by the people of this country that America has already saved us from capitulating to the enemy? Either we should have been forced into this surrender (with our armies unbroken and our munitions of war unexhausted) or we should at this moment be struggling to live and work and fight on one-third of our present rations.

America is sending to these islands almost two-thirds of our food supplies. Sixty-five per cent. of the essential foodstuffs eaten by the British citizen comes to him from the American Continent. This in itself is something which calls for our lively gratitude. But there is a quality in the action of America which should intensify our gratitude. For these American supplies, essential to our health and safety, represent in very large measure the personal and voluntary self-sacrifice of the individual American citizen. They are not crumbs from the table of Dives. They are not the commandeered supplies of an autocratic Government. They represent, rather, the kindly, difficult, and entirely willing self-sacrifice of a whole nation, the vast majority of whom are working people.

There is only one altar for this act of sacrifice--it is the table of the American working classes. And the rite is performed by men, women, and children, at every meal of the day, day after day, week after week.

This act of self-sacrifice, let us remember, is made in the midst of plenty. Well might the American housewife ask why she should deprive her children of food, why she should institute wheatless and meatless days, when all about her there is a visible superabundance of these things. Questions such as this are natural enough on the other side of the Atlantic, and on the other side of the American continent, 5,000 miles away from the battlefields of France.

But the citizens of America do not ask such questions. With a cheerfulness and a courage which are as vigorous as their industry, and with a moral earnestness which is by far the greatest demonstration America has yet given to the world of American character, these people so far away from us on the other side of the Atlantic have willingly and with no coercion by the State denied themselves for the sake of the Entente. They are going short, they are going hungry, for our sakes. They are practicing an intimate self-sacrifice in order that we may hold our own till their sons come to fight at our side. All over America the individual American citizen is making this self-sacrifice, and making it without a murmur. He is feeding, by his personal self-sacrifice, not only these islands, but France, Italy, and many of the neutrals.

This great demonstration of character has had no other impetus than the simple declaration of the facts by Herbert Hoover, the man who fed Belgium. Hoover has told his countrymen how things stand. That is all. The Winter of 1918, he declared to them, will prove to mankind whether or not the American Nation "is capable of individual self-sacrifice to save the world." His propaganda has never descended to unworthy levels. He has appealed always to the conscience of his countrymen. He has spoken of "a personal obligation upon every one of us toward some individual abroad who will suffer privation to the extent of our own individual negligence."

America has answered this appeal in a manner which marks her out as one of the greatest moral forces in the world. It should be known out there, in the farmhouses and cottages of the American Continent, that the people of this country are mindful of America's self-sacrifice, and are grateful.

GENERAL STAFF OFFICERS WITH PERSHING

PROMINENT IN WAR ACTIVITIES

American Soldiers in Battle

How They Repelled an Attack at Seicheprey and Fought in Picardy

[MONTH ENDED MAY 20, 1918]

Seicheprey, in the Toul sector, was the scene on April 20, 1918, of the most determined attack launched against the American forces in France up to that time. A German regiment, reinforced by storm troops, a total of 1,500, was hurled against the American positions on a one-mile front west of Remières Forest, northwest of Toul, after a severe bombardment of gas and high explosive shells. The Germans succeeded in penetrating the front-line trenches and taking the village of Seicheprey, but after furious hand-to-hand fighting the American troops recaptured the village and most of the ground lost in the early fighting.

Next morning, after a brief bombardment, the Americans attacked and drove the enemy out of the old outposts, which they had gained, and thus broke down an offensive which, it was believed, was intended as the beginning of a German plan to separate the Americans and the French. The French lines also were attacked, but the Germans were repulsed and the lines re-established.

The losses were the heaviest sustained by Americans since they began active warfare in France. In a dispatch to the War Department General Pershing indicated that the losses among his men were between 200 and 300. According to the German official statement 183 Americans were taken prisoner, so that the American casualties apparently came mostly under the heading of captured. Official reports of the German losses, according to a prisoner captured later, gave 600 killed, wounded, and missing.

IN THE PICARDY BATTLE

"Franco-American positions south of the Somme and on the Avre" were officially mentioned for the first time in the French War Office report of April 24, indicating that forces of the United States were there on the battlefront resisting the great German offensive. The report stated that an intense bombardment of the positions all along this front was followed by an attack directed against Hangard-en-Santerre, the region of Hailles, and Senecat Wood. The Germans were repulsed almost everywhere.

Formal announcement that American troops sent to reinforce the allied armies had taken part in the fighting was made by the War Department in its weekly review of the situation issued on April 29. "Our own forces," the statement read, "have taken part in the battle. American units are in the area east of Amiens. During the engagements which have raged in this area they have acquitted themselves well."

UNDER INTENSE FIRE

Another heavy attack was launched by the Germans against the Americans in the vicinity of Villers-Bretonneux on April 30. It was repulsed with heavy losses for the enemy. The German bombardment opened at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and was directed especially against the Americans, who were supported on the north and south by the French. The fire was intense, and at the end of two hours the German commander sent forward three battalions of infantry. There was hand-to-hand fighting all along the line, as a result of which the enemy was thrust back, his dead and wounded lying on the ground in all directions. The French troops were full of praise for the manner in which the Americans conducted themselves under trying circumstances, especially in view of the fact that they are fighting at one of the most difficult points on the battlefront. The American losses were rather severe.

The gallantry of the 300 American engineers who were caught in the opening of the German offensive on March 21 was the subject of a dispatch from General Pershing made public by the War Department on April 19. The engineers were among the forces hastily gathered by Major Gen. Sanderson Carey, the British commander, who stopped the gap in the line when General Gough's army was driven back. [See diagram on Page 389.] During the period of thirteen days covered by General Pershing's report, the engineers were almost continuously in action. They were in the very thick of the hardest days of the great German drive in Picardy.

General Pershing embodied in his report a communication from General Rawlinson, commander of the British 5th Army, in which the latter declared that "it has been largely due to your assistance that the enemy is checked." The report covered the fighting period from March 21 to April 3. The former date marked the beginning of the Ludendorff offensive along the whole front from La Fère to Croisilles. It showed that while under shellfire the American engineers destroyed material dumps at Chaulnes, that they fell back with the British forces to Moreuil, where the commands laid out trench work, and were then assigned to a sector of the defensive line at Demuin, and to a position near Warfusee-Abancourt.

During the period of thirteen days covered by the report the American engineers had two officers killed and three wounded, while twenty men were killed, fifty-two wounded, and forty-five reported missing.

STORY OF CAREY EPISODE

A correspondent of The Associated Press at the front gave this account of the part played by Americans in the historic episode under General Carey:

A disastrous-looking gap appeared In the 5th Army south of Hamel in the later stages of the opening battle. The Germans had crossed the Somme at Hamel and had a clear path for a sweep southwestward.

No troops were available to throw into the opening. A certain Brigadier General was commissioned by Major Gen. Gough, commander of the 5th Army, to gather up every man he could find and to "hold the gap at any cost." The General called upon the American and Canadian engineers, cooks, chauffeurs, road workmen, anybody he could find; gave them guns, pistols, any available weapon, and rushed them into the gap in trucks, on horseback, or on mule-drawn limbers.

A large number of machine guns from a machine-gun school near by were confiscated. Only a few men, however, knew how to operate the weapons, and they had to be worked by amateurs with one "instructor" for every ten or twelve guns. The Americans did especially well in handling this arm.

For two days the detachment held the mile and a half gap. At the end of the second day the commander, having gone forty-eight hours without sleep, collapsed. The situation of the detachment looked desperate.

While all were wondering what would happen next, a dusty automobile came bounding along the road from the north. It contained Brig. Gen. Carey, who had been home on leave and who was trying to find his headquarters.

The General was commandeered by the detachment and he was found to be just the commander needed. He is an old South African soldier of the daredevil type. He is famous among his men for the scrapes and escapades of his school-boy life as well as for his daring exploits in South Africa.

Carey took the detachment in hand and led it in a series of attacks and counterattacks which left no time for sleeping and little for eating. He gave neither his men nor the enemy a rest, attacking first on the north, then in the centre, then on the south--harassing the enemy unceasingly with the idea of convincing the Germans that a large force opposed them.

Whenever the Germans tried to feel him out with an attack at one point, Carey parried with a thrust somewhere else, even if it took his last available man, and threw the Germans on the defensive.

The spirit of Carey's troops was wonderful. The work they did was almost super-natural. It would have been impossible with any body of men not physical giants, but the Americans and Canadians gloried in it. They crammed every hour of the day full of fighting. It was a constantly changing battle, kaleidoscopic, free-for-all, catch-as-catch-can. The Germans gained ground. Carey and his men were back at them, hungry for more punishment. At the end of the sixth day, dog-tired and battle-worn, but still full of fight, the detachment was relieved by a fresh battalion which had come up from the rear.

STAFF CHANGES

Major Gen. James W. McAndrew, it was announced on May 3, was appointed Chief of Staff of the American expeditionary force in succession to Brig. Gen. James G. Harbord, who was assigned to a command in the field. Other changes on General Pershing's staff included the appointment of Lieut. Col. Robert C. Davis as Adjutant General, and Colonel Merritte W. Ireland as Surgeon General.

The General Staff of the American expeditionary forces in France, as the result of several changes in personnel, consisted on May 14, 1918, of the following:

Commander: General John J. Pershing Aid de Camp: Colonel James L. Collins Aid de Camp: Colonel Carl Boyd Aid de Camp: Colonel M. C. Shallenberger Chief of Staff: Major Gen. J. W. McAndrew Adjutant: Lieut. Col. Robert C. Davis Inspector: Brig. Gen. Andre W. Brewster Judge Advocate: Brig. Gen. Walter A. Bethel Quartermaster: Brig. Gen. Harry L. Rogers Surgeon: Colonel Merritte W. Ireland Engineer: Brig. Gen. Harry Taylor Ordnance Officer: Brig. Gen. C. B. Wheeler Signal Officer: Brig. Gen. Edgar Russell Aviation Officer: Brig. Gen. B. D. Foulois

President Wilson on May 4 pardoned two soldiers of the American expeditionary force who had been condemned to death by a military court-martial in France for sleeping on sentry duty and commuted to nominal prison terms the death sentences imposed on two others for disobeying orders.

HEALTH OF THE SOLDIERS

Major Hugh H. Young, director of the work of dealing with communicable blood diseases in our army in France, made this striking statement on May 12 regarding the freedom of the American expeditionary force from such diseases:

In making plans for this department of medical work in France it had been calculated by the medical authorities in Washington to have ten 1,000-bed hospitals, in which a million men could receive treatment, but with 500,000 Americans in France there is not one of the five allotted Americans in any of the hospitals now running, and only 500 cases of this type of disease needing hospital treatment, instead of the expected 5,000.

In other words, instead of having 1 per cent. of our soldiers in hospitals from social diseases, as had been expected, the actual number is only one-tenth of 1 per cent. There is no reason to doubt that this record will be maintained. The hospitals prepared for this special treatment are to be used for other cases.

This means that the American Army is the cleanest in the world. The results, according to Major Young, have been achieved by preventive steps taken by the American medical directors, coupled with the co-operation of the men.

Overseas Forces More Than Half a Million

Preparing for an Army of 3,000,000

The overseas fighting forces of the United States have been increasing at a much more rapid rate than the public was aware of. Early in May the number of our men in France was in excess of 500,000. A great increase in the ultimate size of the army was further indicated when the War Department asked the House Military Affairs Committee for a new appropriation of $15,000,000,000.

Mr. Baker, Secretary of War, appeared before the committee on April 23 and, after describing the results of his inspection of the army in France, said that the size of the army that the United States would send abroad was entirely dependent upon the shipping situation. Troops were already moving to France at an accelerated rate.

President Wilson, through Mr. Baker, presented the House Military Affairs Committee on May 2 with proposals for increasing the army. The President asked that all limits be removed on the number of men to be drafted for service. Mr. Baker said that he declined to discuss the numbers of the proposed army "for the double reason that any number implies a limit, and the only possible limit is our ability to equip and transport men, which is constantly on the increase."

The Administration's plans were submitted in detail on May 3, when the committee began the preparation of the army appropriation bill carrying $15,000,000,000 to finance the army during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1919. Mr. Baker again refused to go into the question of figures, but it became known at the Capitol that the estimates he submitted were based on a force of not fewer than 3,000,000 men and 160,000 officers in the field by July 1, 1919. The plan contemplated having 130,000 officers and 2,168,000 men, or a total of 2,298,000, in the field and in camps by July 1, 1918, and approximately an additional million in the field before June 30, 1919.

Mr. Baker said that all the army camps and cantonments were to be materially enlarged, to take care of the training of the men to be raised in the next twelve months. The General Staff had this question under careful consideration, and the idea was to increase the size of existing training camps rather than to establish new camps. These camps, it was estimated, already had facilities for training close to a million men at one time.

The Secretary of War also made it clear that the total of $15,000,000,000 involved in the estimates as revised for the new army bill did not cover the whole cost of the army for the next fiscal year. The $15,000,000,000, he explained, was in addition to the large sums that would be carried in the Fortifications Appropriation bill, which covers the cost of heavy ordnance both in the United States and overseas. Nor did it include the Military Academy bill. It was emphasized that, although estimates were submitted on the basis of an army of a certain size, Congress was being asked for blanket authority for the President to raise all the men needed, and the approximate figures of $15,000,000,000 could be increased by deficiency appropriations.

It was brought out in the committee that the transportation service had improved and that the War Department was able to send more men to France each month. It was estimated that if transport facilities continued to improve, close to 1,500,000 fighting men would be on the western front by Dec. 31, 1918. The United States had now in camp and in the field, it was explained to the committee, the following enlisted men and officers:

Enlisted men 1,765,000 Officers 120,000

Total 1,885,000

Provost Marshal General Crowder announced on May 8 that 1,227,000 Americans had been called to the colors under the Selective Draft act, thereby indicating approximately the strength of the national army. Additional calls during May for men to be in camp by June 2 affected something like 366,600 registrants under the draft law. These men were largely intended to fill up the camps at home, replacing the seasoned personnel from the divisions previously training there. With the increase of the number of divisions in France, the flow of replacement troops was increasing proportionately.

In regard to the number of men in France, Mr. Baker on May 8 made the following important announcement:

In January I told the Senate committee that there was strong likelihood that early in the present year 500,000 American troops would be dispatched to France. I cannot either now or perhaps later discuss the number of American troops in France, but I am glad to be able to say that the forecast I made in January has been surpassed.