Part 19

Of course, the division was making efforts to reach the battalion, being stopped by machine-gun fire. The 77th was fast held during those five days. Meanwhile the 1st had driven its wedge along the wall of the Aire, and on the morning of the 7th the 82nd had begun its attacks in the valley, while the French were ready to move up on the western edge of the Forest. These successes, and the disposition of the 77th to take advantage of them, started the retirement of the Germans in the Forest. On the night of the 7th the survivors of the lost battalion rose from their fox-holes as the figures of Americans came through the darkness to their relief. Their first thought was food. Then they found that they had become heroes. There had been a compelling appeal to the imagination in the thought of this band of Metropolitans from city streets, stoically holding their ground when surrounded by German veterans in a forest in France. They did a fine thing, but no finer than many other battalions whose deeds attracted less public attention.

Now, with the forest edges being "scalloped" according to the original plan, the 77th might carry out, after two weeks of travail, its mission of "mopping up" as the pressure on its flanks was relieved. On the 8th it conquered the Naza positions, its right coming up even with the Taille l'Abbé. The next day, while the 1st was making its second great attack, and the 82nd was again attacking the Cornay heights, while the French were rapidly advancing on the left, the 77th swung ahead for a mile and a half. The Forest was now to be the 77th's for the marching. The retiring enemy offered only rearguard action from machine-guns and concentrations of shell-fire on roads and open spaces, which were mosquito bites after the kind of opposition which they had been facing. All they had to do was to keep up their supplies and ammunition,--and that was a good deal over the miserable roads,--and pick their way through the thickets and in and out among the tree-trunks, across ravines, on to the gap of Grandpré at the Forest's end.

By this time they were at home in woodland maneuvers, or on the 10th they would not have made nearly four miles in formation, combing every yard of the Argonne's breadth as they advanced. That march showed a reserve of vitality in the city men worthy of the day when the 82nd in the valley had overrun the Cornay heights, and the 1st and 32nd had reached the Kriemhilde Stellung. Patrols, encountering no resistance, came out of the Forest to see the promised land. Another stride, and the division would be in the open, facing the gap.

On the northern bank of the Aire, about half a mile beyond its sharp turn toward Grandpré, is the village of Saint-Juvin. The river bottoms here are broad and swampy between the slopes which draw together to form the walls of the gap. From the fronts of the 1st and 32nd Divisions the fragmentary trench system of the Kriemhilde ran northeasterly to a point just opposite the bend. Beyond this to the west the Germans depended upon the westward course of the river and upon the naturally strong positions on its northern side, culminating in the heights above Grandpré. The 77th's sector was extended slightly to the east to include Saint-Juvin, in order that the 82nd, which had taken over some of the front of the 1st, might undertake a movement against the Kriemhilde on the 1st's flank east of the river bend, passing Saint-Juvin on the east.

For four days the 82nd had been throwing its men into charges from the river bottom against heights, and wrestling against counter-attacks. Though it had conquered the trough of its northern course, the Aire river was still the nightmare of its evolutions. The left regiment remained facing the westward bend. The center regiment was to cross the northern course of the river, south of the bend, at Fléville, and join the right regiment, which was already across. This it did under heavy fire on the morning of the 11th, and, deploying, swung west in protecting the flank of the right regiment from the heights north of Saint-Juvin.

The 82nd had already received enough shocks to be called a "stonewall" division, and had given enough to be called a shock division. It was not surprising, then, though wonderful, that the left regiment made two miles in face of the heights; or that the right regiment made a half mile more and by 8 A.M. had reached the Kriemhilde Stellung. Their exhaustion, instead of staying the All-Americas, appeared to give them a delirium of valor. When front lines were riddled by casualties, the second line "leap-frogged," and charged on into the machine-gun fire. One battalion had all its commissioned officers killed or so badly wounded that they could not move; another all but one. Non-commissioned officers continued the attack; but there was no hope at present of taking the Kriemhilde, with its fresh waiting machine-gunners in their interlocking positions supported by artillery, as the 32nd on the 82nd's left had found. The part of it in front of the 82nd was not to be taken in the general attack of October 14th--not until the final drive of November 1st. Exposed in a salient under cross-fire, the survivors of the right regiment were ordered to withdraw even with those of the center regiment, where, still under flanking fire in face of the heights, they held their ground.

Meanwhile the left regiment was to cross the river westward of the bend, in order to assail the heights north and northeast of Saint-Juvin which commanded the village, and to protect the flanks of the other two regiments. The bridge near Saint-Juvin was down. A soldier going into attack under the weight of his pack and 220 rounds of ammunition cannot swim a river. Patrols searched up and down in the darkness in vain for a ford. When the engineers, who were called in, started building a footbridge, they were greeted by bursts of machine-gun fire which suddenly ceased. Instantly the infantry rushed on to the bridge, which was completed at dawn, the machine-gun fire was renewed with great accuracy and increased volume. Dead and wounded fell into the water; survivors leaped into the water and sprang up the opposite bank, facing the unseen enemy. Parts of two companies got across, and boldly started out to envelop Saint-Juvin. After losses of fifty per cent from annihilating machine-gun fire, the little band had to retreat across the river; but they had found that there was a ford near the ruins of the bridge.

Though worn down until its battalions hardly averaged the size of full companies, the left regiment was across by the ford early the next day, and charging for the heights northeast of Saint-Juvin, in the first stages of an action which was to carry on through the general attack of the 14th. In order to rid the flank of machine-gun fire, an officer led his men into the edge of Saint-Juvin itself, and took nests and prisoners. The right of the attack reached the Ravine of Stones, joining up with the center regiment in front of the Kriemhilde. There, in a wicked pocket, they stove off counter-attacks, and fought in and out with the Germans in a hide-and-seek in the treacherous folds of the slope.

In the general attack of the 14th the 82nd was once more called upon to show all the speed of a shock division fresh from rest in billets. Supporting the 42nd on its right, which began its three days of terrific storming of the Chatillon Ridge, where the Kriemhilde bends southward in a loop, the 82nd, with its infantry effectives less than half of normal strength, again attacked the Kriemhilde. It actually got through the Kriemhilde, but again was in a salient, and after further heavy casualties had to withdraw. On the left it had swept over Hill 182, the commanding height to the rear of Saint-Juvin, in coöperation with the attack of the 77th which I shall describe. As the All-American division, the 82nd was prolific in personal exploits. The sergeant who brought in 129 prisoners, and became more famous than the division commander, had a worthy comrade in the western "bronco buster," who, finding himself in face of a group of Germans on Hill 282, walked up to them, and, suddenly drawing his revolver, "took care" of the group. Then seeing a skirmish line of two hundred Germans forming, he picked up a dead German's rifle and shot the officer leading the charge, before he rushed back and brought up his machine-gun company to repulse the attack with the loss of half its numbers.

Of course, the action of the 82nd was influential in the fall of Saint-Juvin, which the 77th, facing the westward bend of the river along the entire front, was to take by a neat maneuver, as its part in pressing the left flank of the Germans in the general attack of the 14th. It was concluded that the German, being a creature of habit, had probably arranged his barrage to protect Saint-Juvin from attack from the south. This was all the more likely against the heady Americans, who had a way in their exasperating energy of taking the bit in the teeth and driving straight through to an objective. With one battalion making a threat in front, the other, crossing the river--which it managed to do most adroitly--from the east, would encounter little opposition. The event turned out entirely according to anticipation, except that the battalion which was to make the threat in front got out of hand, though in a manner which was bound to give a thrill to their commander even in his technical reproof.

After fighting two weeks in the Forest, the men of this battalion were feeling their oats, now that they were in the open. They did not see why the battalion on the right should have all the honor and excitement of taking Saint-Juvin, while they were making faces at it on the side lines. Their eagerness, according to the divisional report, turned the threat into an attack, with the result that they suffered from the barrage which the Germans laid down. At all events, they lost eight officers killed and twenty wounded in leading the men, who suffered in proportion, while the flanking battalion, with slight losses, entered the town on the afternoon of the 14th. The garrison tried to escape, but another little detail of prevision in the 77th's plan interfered. Accordingly the retreating Germans ran into our curtain of machine-gun fire which we laid down northwest of the town, and were captured.

After Chevières, a village on the south bank of the river, was also entered, the next nut to crack, the town of Grandpré on the other side of the river, was bound to be a bad one. It was a large town for this region, with a thousand inhabitants, resting against the bluff of the tongue of ridge which shoots out from the Bourgogne wood, which is the name for the southern end of the Boult Forest. The character of this bluff and of the "citadel" will be of more concern when we come to the thankless and bitter experience of the 78th Division in their assaults. It is sufficient to say now that the bluffs and the houses of the town command the river bank and the narrow opening of the Aire valley to the southernmost projecting edge of the Argonne Forest. While the German on the defensive had machine-guns to spare for use in this Gibraltar, he would apply the tactics in which he was expert by making an attack on the town pay a heavy price, at small cost to himself. On the nights of the 10th and the 11th, some patrols crossed the river and entered Grandpré, to meet with a reception as hot as it was enlightening. It was evident that Grandpré was not to be taken by a few daring men. We must cross in sufficient force to hold, and then only when at least a portion of the machine-gun nests in the town had been silenced. However, the patrols had found a ford.

From their heights on the north bank of the river the Germans were covering all the approaches to the town with artillery, trench-mortar, and machine-gun fire clear to the edge of the Argonne. Where we appeared in obvious avenues of approach, they brought down heavy barrages. The "Libertys" could not make a move in the open without being seen; but they kept on infiltrating forward with the rare canniness they had learned in fighting machine-gun nests through underbrush. By the morning of the 15th they were ready for the final attack. All day their artillery was pounding the town and approaches. All day they were maneuvering and advancing as they held the enemy's attention, until at dusk a detachment rushed the ford and entered the town. Other detachments built boat-bridges, and swam the river in the dark to add their numbers in making sure that we held what we had gained. All night plunging fire from the bluffs continued, and raking fire from the houses swept the streets, while the western and northern edges of the town were being organized to turn over to the 78th Division.

Both river banks were ours; we had the gap, if not the citadel or the bluffs or all the buildings in the town, on the same day, it happened, that the British were at the gates of Lille. For nearly three weeks the "Libertys" had been in action. For all but five days of that time, they had been in the damp woods out of sight of the sun. In its taking of the Forest and of Grandpré and Saint-Juvin, and its subsequent advance to the Meuse after it came into line for a second time, the 77th had 4,832 casualties, and captured 720 prisoners, 3,200 rifles, and pieces of heavy and 16 of light artillery. Even now, when they were to have a holiday, they were not to leave the Forest which their valor had won, but to settle down in the comfortable rest camps in its recesses--much better than the roofless and torn walls of villages--which the enemy had built in the days when he thought that he had permanently occupied this part of France, and when no Prussian of the Landwehr or a shock division ever dreamed of being dispossessed by draft men of New York City, who at that time had never had a rifle in their hands.

XIX

ANOTHER WEDGE

The Marne Division--A wedge in the east over open ridges--Magnificent, but not war--A footing in the Mamelle trench--Blue Ridge men hammering a way into the Ogons Wood--And into the Mamelle trench--A still hunt in a German headquarters--The dead line of the Brieulles road.

Our First Corps was still on the left, with the trough of the Aire now behind it. Our Fifth Corps, including the 1st Division after its transfer from the First, was still in the center, and our Third Corps in the yet unconquered trough of the Meuse on the right. Departing from the arbitrary lines of the Corps, in following the movement for the conquest of the Forest and of the trough and the walls of the Aire to its conclusion, no mention was made of the other divisions from the flank of the 32nd to the Meuse. All had been attacking with the same vigor as those to the left.

On October 1st the 3rd Division, under Major-General Beaumont B. Buck, had relieved the 79th, going in beside the 32nd. Its part is given separately from that of the 32nd, which was in the same, or Fifth Corps, because it was also to drive a wedge in the general attack of October 4th. Be it the 1st or 2nd, or the 4th or 5th, the 3rd considered itself the peer of any regular division. It had become veteran without any trench service when it hurried to Château-Thierry to its baptism of fire, in the crisis of the third German offensive of the spring. I have described in my first book how, flanks exposed, it "stonewalled" on the Marne's bank against the fifth German offensive; and how, then swiftly crossing the Marne, it had joined our other divisions in the advance to the Vesle. Though its emblem was three white stripes on a blue field, indicating its three battles, it was sometimes called the Marne Division. The reputation for unflinching endurance and bold initiative which it had won was now to be further enhanced in an action whose toll of casualties was second--and then by only one hundred--to that of the 1st, which drove the wedge along the Aire.

Having come from Saint-Mihiel, its replacements absorbed in its ways, its units all fresh and trained in coöperation, it marched along the road through Montfaucon which was ever under shell-fire, and down the slopes in face of the guns of the whale-back, following the path where the 79th had "expended" itself, with the spring of youth in its steps and confidence in the heart-beat of every man. Such was its pride and spirit that one would say that anything that this division could not do no other division could do. Judging by the sector and the mission to which it was assigned, this was also the view of the Army command.

The line which it took over from Nantillois to the Beuge Wood was exposed to continual harassing fire. Before it were three bare irregular ridges, surmounted by commanding hills, with woods on the right flank. On the last of the three was the Mamelle trench, a part of the Kriemhilde Stellung. Army ambition, fondly contemplating the freshness and efficiency of the 3rd, saw it driving over those bare ridges, all the while under the guns of the whale-back, past flanking machine-gun fire from the wooded Hill 250 and Cunel Wood on the right. Piercing the Mamelle trench, it was to sink its wedge into the right flank of the whale-back, while the wedge of the 1st was sunk into the left flank. It was the precept of the Army that if you did not order a thing it would not be delivered. One never could tell. The 3rd might do a miracle. It had done something like a miracle on the banks of the Marne. The better a division was, the more was expected of it: which is only logical and human.

The open ground on the front was excellently suited for tanks. Forty or fifty would have approached a theoretically adequate number for the division's part in the general attack on October 4th. Unfortunately our troops had had little training in maneuvers with tanks, and the few which the French were able to spare for the 3rd were of relatively little service. For its artillery support, the 3rd had, beside its own brigade, that of the 32nd. This appeared quite generous on paper--but not in sight of those ridges. Their crests should have been ruptured by the high-explosive bursts of half a dozen regiments of heavy artillery, and received a shower-bath of shrapnel from half a dozen regiments of field artillery. However, there was the infantry--we could depend upon the "doughboys" even if we were short of artillery.

As a substitute for natural cover, a smoke-screen was helpful in obscuring the aim of the enemy's machine-gunners as the charge ascended the exposed slope of the first ridge. This was taken in the morning under the cross-fire from Hill 250, which had resisted the attack on the right, while the enemy artillery fire from the whale-back searched the whole field of the advance. The dependable infantry, closing up the gaps in ranks torn by shell-fire, swaying, re-forming, and rushing on, had accomplished this much; but there were the machine-guns from 250 sweeping the flank of the line on the ridge. The artillery was asked to pound 250; it did its best to answer this while it was answering other pressing calls. An effort to encircle 250 while it was being shelled was blasted back. No matter about 250; there was yet the second ridge to be taken; and the afternoon was young. Before nightfall the men of the 3rd had reached its reverse slope, and were digging in under shell-fire, while they received machine-gun fire not only from 250 but from Cunel Wood, which was now in flank of their advance. The Cunel was a small wood, but it was large enough for a host of machine-guns, and could not have been better placed for the German purpose.

The next morning, October 5th, under artillery support, the men of the 3rd tried infiltration over the crest of the second ridge by all the tactics known to veterans. Apart from ample machine-guns and infantry in the trenches, the Germans had two field guns on the ridge, firing at point-blank range in directions where they would be of most service. Infiltration would not do. There must be artillery preparation, then a sweep over the crest behind the shield of a strong barrage. During the organization of this attack, there was no lull in the bitter and stubborn fighting. If lines became disarranged, there was no demoralization. The Marne division was second to no division. It meant to go through. The Cunel Wood must be cleaned up as a part of the program of taking the second ridge. A line of men, crouching, methodical, bayonets glistening, started across the open against the wood, and melted away in face of the spitting of the machine-guns. Unflinchingly another line advanced, and still another, and they too melted away under that blaze from the wood's edge. Artillery preparation for the assault of the second ridge at 5 P.M. had included the Mamelle trench on the third ridge, where the Germans were known to be in strong force. The crest of the second ridge was gained. One company, targets against the slope for shells and machine-gun bullets, kept on until it reached the little Moussin brook in the valley. The German machine-gunners had this perfectly registered under an aim that swept the reverse slope. If the company had continued advancing, any survivor who reached the Mamelle trench would have been taken prisoner. That night the machine-guns on 250 were mopped up, which removed one source of assassination in flank. The 3rd was not keeping up with the lines drawn for it on the map, but it was making gains and holding them.

Fatigue and the drain from casualties were beginning to tell. It was evident from the number of Germans and machine-guns in the Mamelle trench that the enemy meant to fight desperately for its retention. There was no storming it without thorough artillery preparation until something was done to take care of Cunel Wood on the flank. In conjunction with the 80th on its right, the 3rd again charged Cunel's machine-gun nests. They made an entrance, only to find that the depths of the wood were plotted with machine-gun nests which began firing when the edge was taken. After the repulse of the main attack, a sergeant and twenty men of the 3rd stuck to their fox-holes. The following day they were able to withdraw in small groups. Meanwhile defensive positions were being organized on the second ridge. It was not a solacing fact to have the 32nd Division's artillery withdrawn at this juncture. In its place came a smaller force of French, who were welcome, but would have been more welcome if they had had more guns; but the British, the French, the Americans, and the Belgians, too, were using every available gun in the general offensive movement.