CHAPTER XVI

INTO THE TRENCHES

After months of training behind the lines the doughboys began to long for commencement. It came late in October. The point selected for the trench test of the Americans was in a quiet sector. The position lay about twelve miles due east from Nancy and five miles north of Luneville. It extended roughly from Parroy to Saint-Die. Even after the entry of the Americans the sector remained under French command. In fact, the four battalions of our troops which made up the first American contingent on the fighting-line were backed up by French reserves. No better training sector could have been selected, for this was a quiet front. American officers who acted as observers along this line for several days before the doughboys went in found that shelling was restricted and raids few. Many villages close behind the lines on either side were respected because of a tacit agreement between the contending armies. French and Germans sent war-weary troops to the Luneville sector to rest up. It also served to break in new troops without subjecting them to an oversevere ordeal, so that they might learn the tricks of modern warfare gradually.

Of course, even quiet sectors may become suddenly active, and care was taken to screen the movements of the soldiers carefully. It proved impossible, however, to keep the move a complete mystery, for when camion after camion of tin-hatted Americans moved away from the training area the villagers could not fail to suspect that something was about to happen. Perhaps these suspicions grew stronger when each group of fighting men sang loudly and cheerfully that they were "going to hang the Kaiser to a sour apple-tree."

The weather was distinctly favorable for the movement of troops. One of the blackest nights of the month awaited the Americans at the front. Rain fell, but not hard enough to impede transportation. Still, such weather was something of a moral handicap. Many of the newcomers would have been glad to take a little shelling if they could have had a bit of a moon or a few stars to light their way to the trenches. Instead they groped their way along roads which were soft enough to deaden every sound. A wind moaned lightly overhead and the strict command of silence made it impossible to seek the proper antidote of song. One or two men struck up "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching," as they headed for the front, but they were quickly silenced.

The march began about nine o'clock, after the soldiers had eaten heartily in a little village close to the lines. At the very edge of this village stood a cheerful inn and a moving-picture theatre. The doughboys looked a little longingly at both houses of diversion before they swung round the bend and followed the black road which led to the trench-line. The people of the village did not seem to be much excited by the fact that history was being made before their eyes. They had seen so many troops go by up that road that they could achieve no more than a friendly interest. They did not crowd close about the marchers as the people had done in Paris.

Seemingly the Germans had not been able to ascertain the time set for the coming of the Americans. The roads were not shelled at all. In fact, the German batteries were even more indolent than usual at this point. The relief was effected without incident, although a few stories drifted back about enthusiastic poilus who had greeted their new comrades with kisses.

The artillery beat the infantry into action. They had to have a start in order to get their guns into place, and some fifteen hours before the doughboys went into the trenches America had fired the first shot of the war against Germany. Alexander Arch, a sergeant from South Bend, Indiana, was the man who pulled the lanyard. The shot was a shrapnel shell and was directed at a German working-party who were presuming on the immunity offered by a misty dawn. They scattered at the first shot, but it was impossible to tell whether it caused any casualties. When the working-party took cover there were no targets which demanded immediate attention, and the various members of the gun crew were allowed the privilege of firing the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth shots of the war. After that, shooting at the Germans ceased to become a historical occasion, but was a mere incident in the routine of duty, and was treated as such.

The only unusual incident which seriously threatened the peace of mind of the infantrymen in their first night in the trenches was the flash of a green rocket which occurred some fifteen or twenty minutes after they arrived. They had been taught that a green rocket would be the alarm for a gas attack, but this particular signal came from the German trenches and had no message for the Americans. The Germans may have suspected the presence of new troops, for the men were just a bit jumpy, as all newcomers to the trenches are, and a few took pot-shots at objects out in No Man's Land which proved to be only stakes in the barbed wire or tufts of waving grass.

Although the Germans made the first successful raid, the Americans took the first prisoner. He was captured only a few nights after the coming of the doughboys. A patrol picked him up close to the American wire. He was a mail-carrier, and in cutting across lots to reach some of his comrades he lost his way and wandered over to the American lines. Although he was surprised, he was not willing to surrender, but made an attempt to escape after he had been ordered to halt. One of the doughboys fired at him as he ran and he was carried into the American trenches badly wounded. He died the next day.

Beginning on the night of November 2 and extending over into the early morning of November 3, the Germans made a successful raid against the American lines immediately after a relief. After a severe preliminary bombardment a large party of raiders came across. The bombardment had cut the telephone wires of the little group of Americans which met the attack and they were completely isolated. They fought bravely but greenly. Three Americans were killed, five were wounded, and twelve were captured. The Germans retired quickly with their prisoners.

American morale was not injured by this first jab of the Germans. On the other hand, it made the doughboys mad, and, better than that, made them careful. A German attempt to repeat the raid a few nights later was repulsed. The three men who were killed in this first clash were buried close to the lines, while minute-guns fired shells over the graveyard toward the Germans. General Bordeaux, who commanded the French division at this point, saluted before each of the three graves, and then turned to the officers and men drawn up before him and said:

"In the name of the division, in the name of the French Army, and in the name of France, I bid farewell to Private Enright, Private Gresham, and Private Hay of the American Army.

"Of their own free will they had left a prosperous and happy country to come over here. They knew war was continuing in Europe; they knew that the forces fighting for honor, love of justice and civilization were still checked by the long-prepared forces serving the powers of brutal domination, oppression, and barbarity. They knew that efforts were still necessary. They wished to give us their generous hearts, and they have not forgotten old historical memories while others forget more recent ones. They ignored nothing of the circumstances and nothing had been concealed from them--neither the length and hardships of war, nor the violence of battle, nor the dreadfulness of new weapons, nor the perfidy of the foe.

"Nothing stopped them. They accepted the hard and strenuous life; they crossed the ocean at great peril; they took their places on the front by our side, and they have fallen facing the foe in a hard and desperate hand-to-hand fight. Honor to them. Their families, friends, and fellow citizens will be proud when they learn of their deaths.

"Men! These graves, the first to be dug in our national soil and but a short distance from the enemy, are as a mark of the mighty land we and our allies firmly cling to in the common task, confirming the will of the people and the army of the United States to fight with us to a finish, ready to sacrifice so long as is necessary until victory for the most noble of causes, that of the liberty of nations, the weak as well as the mighty. Thus the deaths of these humble soldiers appear to us with extraordinary grandeur.

"We will, therefore, ask that the mortal remains of these young men be left here, be left with us forever. We inscribe on the tombs: 'Here lie the first soldiers of the Republic of the United States to fall on the soil of France for liberty and justice.' The passer-by will stop and uncover his head. Travellers and men of heart will go out of their way to come here to pay their respective tributes.

"Private Enright! Private Gresham! Private Hay! In the name of France I thank you. God receive your souls. Farewell!"

After the Germans had identified Americans on the Luneville front it was supposed that they might maintain an aggressive policy and make the front an active one. The Germans were too crafty for that. They realized that the Americans were in the line for training, and so they gave them few opportunities to learn anything in the school of experience. In spite of the lack of co-operation by the Germans, the doughboys gained valuable knowledge during their stay in the trenches. There were several spirited patrol encounters and much sniping. American aviators got a taste of warfare by going on some of the bombing expeditions of the French. They went as passengers, but one American at least was able to pay for his passage by crawling out from his seat and releasing a bomb which had become jammed. When every battalion had been in the trenches the American division was withdrawn, and for a short time in the winter of 1917 there was no American infantry at the front.

Curiously enough, the honor of participation in a major engagement hopped over the infantry and came first to the engineers. It came quite by accident. The 11th Engineers had been detailed for work behind the British front. Early on the morning of November 30 four officers and 280 men went to Gouzeaucourt, a village fully three miles back of the line. But this was the particular day the Germans had chosen for a surprise attack. The engineers had hardly begun work before the Germans laid a barrage upon the village, and almost before the Americans realized what was happening German infantry entered the outskirts of the place while low-flying German planes peppered our men with machine-gun fire. The engineers were unarmed, but they picked up what weapons they could find and used shovels and fists as well as they retired before the German attack. According to the stories of the men, one soldier knocked two Germans down with a pickaxe before they could make a successful bayonet thrust. He was eventually wounded but did not fall into the hands of the enemy. Seventeen of the engineers were captured, but the rest managed to fight their way out or take shelter in shell-holes, where they lay until a slight advance by the British rescued them.

Having had a taste of fighting, the engineers were by no means disposed to have done with it. The entire regiment, including the survivors of Gouzeaucourt, were ordered first to dig trenches and then to occupy them. This time they were armed with rifles as well as intrenching-tools. They held the line until reinforcements arrived.

The conduct of the engineers was made the subject of a communication from Field-Marshal Haig to General Pershing. "I desire to express to you my thanks and those of the British engaged for the prompt and valuable assistance rendered," wrote the British commander, "and I trust that you will be good enough to convey to these gallant men how much we all appreciate their prompt and soldierly readiness to assist in what was for a time a difficult situation."