Part 20

On the 7th and 8th the 3rd remained dug in, preparing for the general attack of the 9th which on the Army's left was to free the Aire valley. That day the objective was to take the Mamelle trench and pass on through to the Pultière Wood. Meanwhile on the 8th there had been remorselessly close quarters work in attacks and counter-attacks in trying to take Hill 253 on the left, with the result that the end of the day left the two lines about seventy-five yards apart on the slope. Starting from the valley of the Moussin brook on the 9th, we swept into the Mamelle, overran it in places, lost parts of it, held other parts as the contest swayed back and forth. On the 10th it was hammer-and-tongs again, as we made further gains supported by barrages, only to find as the barrage lifted that the guns from the whale-back were bursting shells on our heads,--and units were again in salients of interlocking machine-gun fire. The advantage gained was not in distance, but in cleaning up some of the machine-gun nests, which allowed us to hold on to more of the Mamelle. The 11th was a repetition of the same ferocity of initiative and resistance in the same kind of wrestle. It had been a test of endurance in sleepless effort between the men of the 3rd and the Germans, and the grit of the 3rd had won.

All this time the 80th on the left, which was swinging past the trench, was suffering from flanking fire from the machine-guns which the 3rd was trying to overcome. On the night of the 12th, the 3rd relieved units of the 80th, extending its sector. This frequent realignment in divisional sectors only made more difficult the repeated re-forming of the lines within the sector due to set-backs and casualties. The next day the elements of the 3rd which had taken over in the Peut de Faux Wood found themselves, after a terrific outburst of shell-fire, facing a strong German counter-attack. They had resisted German attacks before this on the Marne. At one point they withdrew from the line of the barrage; but when the barrage lifted, and they looked the enemy infantry in the eye at close quarters, they never budged.

There may have been faults in the command of the 3rd in this baffling problem of tactics on open slopes and ridges where communications were under the fire of artillery from both the whale-back and the heights across the Meuse, but there was no fault in the dependable infantry. Here, as along the rest of the front in the middle of October, we were learning that the enemy, having lost advantageous ground in the defense of the whale-back, was to hold the final heights with all the more stubbornness. In the successes from October 4th to 11th the 3rd had won one of the most conspicuous. After two weeks in line its endurance was not exhausted. It was now to begin preparing for the general attack of October 14th, which is another phase of the battle.

Support on its right flank, which had been essential to its progress, had been given by the peripatetic Blue Ridge men. The veterans of Stonewall Jackson's flying columns would have felt at home in the 80th Division. We know how well it had fought for three days in the initial attack that broke the old fortifications. On September 28th, when the 80th had been "squeezed out" of the narrowing Third Corps sector, its artillery and one infantry regiment had also remained in the fighting with the 4th Division, while the three other regiments had been marched around to be in readiness to assist the 37th in repelling a counter-attack against the Montfaucon woods. Now the Blue Ridge men were returned to become the left flank of the Third Corps on familiar ground. For such rapid travelers Army ambition had set a no less rapid pace on the map than for the 3rd. They were to keep on driving until they were through the Kriemhilde Stellung between Cunel and the Meuse. It was not fair to call them a fresh division, unless hard fighting and hard marching were counted a warming-up exercise, and going without sleep a tonic.

The first of the many hurdles in the steeple-chase planned for them was the Ogons Wood, whose machine-guns had shattered the attacks of the 79th on September 29th; but this was ancient history in a battle whose processes were so swift. It happened six days ago. We were in a new era; we were making another general attack as powerful as that of September 26th. The clock had run down on September 29th; it was wound up again by the 4th. The 80th had only to repeat its own successes in the first three days of the battle, and it was in Cunel. The staff must always talk in this encouraging fashion; but there was no reason to believe that there were fewer machine-guns in the Ogons Wood than when the 79th had been repulsed. Possibly their number had been increased during the stalemate period from September 29th to October 4th. There was one way of finding out--by sending a wave of human targets over those open slopes toward the wood's edge.

The machine-guns began firing with the mechanical regularity of a knitting machine, instantly the attack began. The Blue Ridge men were not surprised at this, or at receiving high-explosive shells from two directions. If they had not known from their own previous experience, the men of the long-suffering 4th Division on their right could have told them that once they were in the woods the German gunners would be slipping gas shells into their gun tubes in place of the H. E.'s used against them in the open. It was the quantity of shells and bullets that was unexpected. The enemy shell-bursts were keeping pace with them as automatically as their own barrages, and beyond their own barrage the enemy was laying down a stationary barrage awaiting their advance. Machine-gun fire increased with every step.

There was no continuing against such a shower of projectiles and hissing of bullets. A halt was called. A battalion of reserves was brought up while the artillery was told where to concentrate its fire; separated units were brought together, re-formed on a new line; tanks came up on the left to assist in the second charge at 5.30 P.M.; but the enemy had only held his fire, waiting for the second charge to start. It came nearer the Ogons, but when darkness fell the Blue Ridge men were still lying in the open, south of the wood, the enemy's guns still keeping up an intermittent galling fire, which was falling alike on the dead and the wounded and the survivors. Patrols filtered into the woods during the night--and the Blue Ridge men had a gift for such work--only to learn that a few enterprising scouts, in their stealthy crawling, if they wished to escape massacre or being taken prisoner, had to avoid drawing fire.

Attack again! Keep on trying! The next morning all the machine-guns were ordered up to send a barrage of bullets over the heads of the charge into the edge of the woods. This had been efficacious on other occasions, but it was not this time, as the infantry knew instantly they rose to advance, when the deadly refrain from the edge of the woods showed no more diminution than the wrath of the guns from the heights. Ground was gained in places between the swaths of the machine-guns' mowing; but no part of the line penetrated the woods, though it was close to the woods when it was stopped. Attack again! Keep on trying! The enemy will break if you try hard enough! The wedge must be driven, whether through woods, over slopes, or through trenches. Again reorganization; again the line re-formed to make the most of gains; again the artillery ordered to concentrate on the woods for an attack at 6 P.M. This time the jumping-off place was so near the woods, that the Germans, when the barrage descended upon them, were as a rule disinclined to wait for the charge. Many who remained held up their hands. The men felt relief at being at last no longer a target in the open as they made swift work of mopping up the whole of the Ogons.

The next day, the 6th, the divisional artillery assisted the 3rd in its efforts for the Mamelle trench. Patrols trying to reach the trenches north of the Ogons--which incidentally was being gassed--ran into an array of machine-gun nests, and brought back information about what was in store for the next attack; for the German, as we know, was much in earnest on the east flank of the whale-back. On the night of the 6th the brigade which had been in front during these two days was relieved by the brigade in reserve. On the 7th and 8th, while there was more or less of a lull in the battle everywhere except in the Aire valley and the Argonne, the 80th was busy with patrols, locating enemy pill-boxes for the information of the artillery, and preparing for its part in the general attack of the 9th all along the line--the attack that brought us up to the main line of defenses at many points--the third great attack of the battle. September 26th, October 4th, and October 9th are the three dates.

The 80th did not start at daylight, the same hour as the 3rd on its left. Its thrust waited on the advance of the 3rd to a certain point. At 3.15 the word came for the 80th to attack. After fifteen minutes of furious artillery, the first wave rose and moved forward in face of the machine-guns, while the enemy brought down a curtain of shell-fire in front of the second wave when it rose, in order to keep it from supporting the first, whose ranks were being rapidly thinned; but all the powers of destruction which the enemy could bring to bear could not stay the men of the fresh brigade in their hard-won stages of progress, now that the slopes and the Ogons were at their back. They took the strong point of the Ville-aux-Bois farm, and still going after dark they reached the Cunel-Brieulles road.

There was a familiar sound to that word Brieulles. The 80th on September 28th had attacked the hills in front of this town at the bend in the river. Brieulles was still in the enemy's hands, but the village of Cunel was ahead in the dark night. There must be numerous Germans in Cunel. In stealthy audacity two companies of the Blue Ridge men now turned a trick that would have rejoiced the heart of Jeb Stuart or Colonel Mosby. They slipped into Cunel very quietly, and returned with two crestfallen German battalion staffs--thirty officers and sixty men--whom they had caught completely by surprise.

The next morning the enemy had his revenge of the kind which his hidden long-range artillery in its lofty positions out of reach of our guns might take. An attack was ordered for 7 A.M. As it was forming, and the morning light dissipated the mist, the watchful German observers were taking notes and passing the word to the gunners in Brieulles and in the Rappes and Pultière woods. The minute-hands were near the "H" hour on wrist watches, and the line ready, when a concentration of screams came from three directions, and geysers of earth and shell fragments and gusts of shrapnel had something of the effect of a volcanic fissure opened at the men's feet. Officers were killed or thrown down by the concussion in the midst of their hasty directions. Two companies were decimated, two others scattered in confusion, by this sudden and infernal visitation; but this did not mean that the Blue Ridge men were to give up making the attack. They reorganized and charged according to orders. The enemy guns which had caused such havoc in their ranks disputed their advance. Against this whirlwind they managed to go beyond the Brieulles-Cunel road, but could not hold their positions. The Germans made the road a dead line, and for days to come its ribbon was to be the clear gray background upon which human targets were clearly visible to their watchful gunners. The "pinch-hitting" 80th was the only division thus far that had been twice in the battle line of the Meuse-Argonne. Before it went in again, its infantry was to have a real rest, though its artillery, engineers, and ammunition train remained to support the 5th Division which took its place.

XX

IN THE MEUSE TROUGH

The bull-dog 4th--Enfilade shell-fire from a gallery of heights--Driving and holding a salient--A second try--As far as it could reasonably go--Reversing Falkenhayn's offensive--The 33rd builds bridges--To cross and join the Blue and Grey Division in a surprise attack--A bowl of hills--The Borne de Cornouiller holds out.

On the 80th's left during the advance of October 4th-11th was the bull-dog 4th Division, under its bull-dog commander, Major-General John L. Hines, which had been continuously in line since the first day of the battle. Hines had been trained in the school of the pioneer 1st. When he was with the 1st, he considered that it was the "best" of the Regular divisions. Since he had been in command of the 4th, he had changed his mind as the result of maturer judgment and more experience in the field. The 4th was now the "best" of the Regular divisions. The question of whether or not it was the "best" of all our divisions, including National Guard and National Army, so enlarges the field of rivalry that it must be left to the decision of divisional historians.

No one on the Army staff considered relieving the 4th before the attack of October 4th. If any man of the division thought of relief, he knew that the bull-dogs might not expect it when they were in a position where the Army could not afford to allow them to loosen their grip on the enemy. What incoming division could familiarize itself on short notice with that treacherous front in the trough of the Meuse river, which the 4th knew by experience?

Its right rested in the woods on the west bank of the Meuse, while the German front line was four miles back on the east bank on its flank. Enemy machine-guns had hiding-places on the banks not only of the river but of the Meuse Canal, which follows the course of the river. Beyond the river bottoms, on the east bank, were many patches of woods on the first slopes, which brought field artillery within range of the 4th's front, while the heavy artillery in the ravines and woods around the Borne de Cornouiller, or Hill 378, was also in range. To this quite gratuitous bombardment, entirely out of our own battle zone, from the eastern gallery upon the pit of the amphitheater of the 4th's action, we had no means of replying. It must be accepted with the same philosophy as an earthquake or any other violence of nature. In front of the 4th's right flank was the town of Brieulles in the river bend, which held batteries of field guns, its surrounding swamps defended by machine-gun nests giving it the character of a fortress with a moat. To the left of it was the Fays Wood, facing more open ground, and back of that the frontal gallery of heights holding still more artillery, while on their left was the gallery of the whale-back.

Campaigners who have been for a long time sleeping on doors and the hard ground, when they try a bed again find, as I found on one occasion, that it is so unnaturally soft that they lie down on the floor before they can sleep. The men of the 4th had become so accustomed to enfilade shell-fire that they would hardly have felt at home without it. If they had been receiving shells from the rear as well as from front and flank, I think that General Hines would only have set his jaw the harder, and his bull-dogs would have said: "We thought we'd be hearing from you. Now we know the worst. But you can't make us let go." When they took a piece of woods from the Germans, it was immediately gassed. Some of them thought little more of putting on their gas masks than a baseball player of putting on his mitt. Already a veteran division when they came into line, they had taken an excoriating course in practical warfare which made their previous experience comparatively that of a grammar school. There could be nothing new in store for them in the attack on October 4th; they could be under none of the illusions of fresh troops in their first plunge into the cauldron.

Army ambition chose to make them another wedge--we were falling into the habit of wedges as the only means to progress--which was to take the Fays Wood; then the Forest Wood (Bois de Forêt), by crossing open ground under the enfilade of Brieulles and all the guns on the other side of the Meuse. This may have seemed a reasonable mission for them, as they were already so hardened to flanking fire. Indeed the flank of this division was exposed in its drive down the Meuse valley in much the same way as the 1st's on the Aire wall, with the difference that its right carried down the slopes falling toward the river in plain view of the heights on the other side.

The 4th could be trusted to do not only its valorous but its professional best. In view of the galleries of guns overlooking the sector, it seems superfluous to say that it had not enough artillery support. The bull-dogs had given up calling for artillery assistance. They had been under superior artillery fire so long that they took it for granted that they would have to attack under support of artillery inferior to the enemy's when they drove their wedge into tiers of machine-gun nests; but they had in their favor their amazing capacity for judging where shells were going to hit and taking cover before they burst, for slipping out from under barrages without losing their heads, and thus keeping their formations, and for filtering in between concentrations. It was amazing how many German shells were required to make a casualty in the 4th; otherwise there would not have been enough men of the division left for a charge on the morning of October 4th, when their waves went forward with that suppleness of adaptability which is the difference between drill-ground and veteran precision.

Their line of advance in the open plowed by shells, they carried all the machine-gun nests in the Fays Wood, put the wood behind them, and reached the Cunel-Brieulles road. So they had driven home their wedge, a very sharp-pointed one. Their left flank was exposed to the Ogons Wood, which the 80th could not reach in its repeated charges, and to the Cunel Wood beyond, which the 3rd had not taken, and to the guns of the whale-back. On their immediate front they faced the machine-gun fire from the western portion of the Peut de Faux Wood on their left, and on their right from a series of trenches on a ridge which supported the Kriemhilde, while the increasing volume of fire on both flanks emphasized the German intention to permit no rash American flying column to slip down the river valley in flank of the whale-back. Thus the advance was in the narrow angle of a murderously sharp salient on bad ground. This could not be deepened into the jaws of hell; it could not be retained except at a futile sacrifice. The bull-dogs could dodge shells from across the Meuse, but they could not dodge a hose play of machine-gun bullets coming from both flanks. If they managed protection in one direction, they could not manage it from the other. Skillfully making a virtue of necessity, they withdrew in the night to the line of the Ville-aux-Bois farm, where they were still in a salient, but one which their craft in taking cover and their tenacity could hold, and did hold against three determined counter-attacks under strong barrages against the Fays Wood. On the 9th the tactical plan required that they mark time until the 80th had reached a given point, as the 80th in turn waited on the advance of the 3rd. The day was overcast; it was already dusk at 5.40 P.M., when word was given for the 4th to charge as the start of three days' fighting more bitter than the division had yet known.

Draw a line east and west through the 4th's front, and it would now have passed to the north of the Borne de Cornouiller, whose guns were throwing their shells into the right rear of the charge. Their fire was joined by that from all the other galleries, while the machine-guns from Brieulles swept a field of targets revealed by the light of bursting shells. Barrages of gas shells were laid across the path of the charge and into the woods ahead. This was particularly trying in the gathering darkness, over ground where landmarks could not be distinguished. The bull-dog did not take hold this time. There was nothing to grip except the murderous flashes. To go on was only to court a fearful casualty list and inevitable confusion and disorganization in the darkness, which could not be readily repaired.

The troops were recalled, while the German gunners continued to shell the field of their advance, thinking that they were still moving forward. The next morning, they started early in order to have a full day before them. In face of the same kind of deluge of gas and shells, and trench-mortar in addition to machine-gun fire, and under the support of their own barrage, they made one bite of the tongue of Martinvaux Wood with its trench line on the right. They passed through the eastern portion of the Peut de Faux Wood, where the undergrowth was dense and there was no protecting men with a barrage. Advance elements charged across the ravine into the larger Forêt Wood; but it was hopeless to try to consolidate in the midst of gas and machine-gun fire from the depth of the wood. By this time the line was past Brieulles, whose guns and machine-guns were of course stabbing the flank at close quarters.

Brieulles, considering the cost of taking it, was not so important to immediate Army purpose as thrusting the wedge into the flank of the whale-back. So Brieulles, which was not to be ours until we won the whale-back three weeks later, had to be borne; and it was the way of the 4th to bear such thrusts in the ribs without flinching, as it prepared for another attack the next day under the plunging fire from the galleries. Beginning again at 7 A.M., when it had finished its day's work it was through the gassed Forêt Wood, and had sent its patrols up on Hill 299 beyond. This was the high-water mark of its arduous and glorious part in the battle. It had gone as far as anything but tactical madness would permit, until the heights of the whale-back and east of the Meuse could be broken. Until October 19th, it held its gains under continual gassing and cross artillery fire.

Twenty-three days in the welter of the Meuse slopes, it had been able to remain all that time in gassed woods and ravines in cold autumn rains, owing to its character that made every ounce of energy answer a resolute will to well-directed ends; for this bull-dog also had something of the nature of the opossum and the panther. It knew how to spring. The depth of the division's advance was eight miles, and the marvel of this was that every yard since the first day had been gained in frontal attack against machine-gun nests protected by superior artillery fire. It had taken 2,731 prisoners and 44 guns, some of them of large caliber, with a loss of 6,000 officers and men killed and wounded. A proud division the 4th, with the right to be proud, though it had no parades in its honor, as its personnel came from all parts of the country, when it returned home.

During the latter days of its service, it began to realize that our own artillery fire was increasing. This seemed almost too good to be true, and of course, as the men remarked, it came after the 4th's offensive work was over. The fact was that our army was receiving more guns. It was also noticed that there was less flanking artillery fire. This was due not only to our attacks on the Romagne positions, which absorbed more and more of the attention of the German gunners of the whale-back, but also to the driving of still another wedge, this time on the east side of the Meuse--the wedge which at one stage of the battle the 1st was intended to drive before that on the Aire wall became more vital.