Part 32

Their jumping-off places having been gained, progress became more rapid in a series of thrusts. On the 25th, one party entered the Bourgogne Wood from Talma Hill. There was a gap of half a mile between them and the troops in the park. Both they and the men in the park held on against the worst the enemy's machine-guns and artillery could do, while it took two days' persistent fighting by other units to conquer machine-gun nests and snipers, to close the gap. On the 29th Bellejoyeuse farm was taken; Hill 180 beyond it was taken; Hill 204 had already been stormed with the aid of the French. The left brigade of the 78th had finished the task.

The traveler who goes to the Meuse-Argonne battlefield, as he follows the road from Grandpré on his way up the valley of the sinuous Aire, would do well to take a long and thoughtful look at the sweep of open ground between the river and the green mass of the Loges Wood rising from its edge. Let him imagine the right brigade of the 78th crossing the river on the 16th, and plunging through mud knee-deep, as in the freshness of the youth of its men and its division spirit, without artillery preparation, and without time to organize an attack properly, answering the call of the Army to divert German strength from the fronts of the divisions in the center, it went across that exposed zone straight in face of the blaze from the machine-guns in the woods and the associated heights. Though the gray valley floor was sprinkled with the figures of the dead and wounded, the charge reached the edge of the wood; it had gained the foot of the stairs.

Loges Wood was not only high ground. Its character and situation as well peculiarly suited it for defense. The wood was thick enough to prevent the artillery making a barrage to protect the infantry, and sparse enough to give hidden machine-guns in the thickets a free play. It was estimated that there were machine-guns at intervals of forty yards in the German first line of defense, not to mention the interlocking system in the depths of the woods. The ground itself was a series of ravines, resembling nothing so much as a corrugated iron-roof. Each formed a natural avenue for machine-gun fire. The machine-gunners in the woods were supported by plentiful artillery in the rear to concentrate upon the open spaces before the wood and on the irregular open slopes east and west, which were linked together in singular adaptability for the enemy's purpose. He was not, in this instance, to depend upon small groups of machine-gunners to fight to the death. Knowing from past experience that these would be overcome by our hammering tactics, he was prepared to keep on putting in reserves for counter-attacks to answer our attacks. Therefore Loges Wood was to become a cockpit.

The problem of how to attack it was baffling. Of course, encircling was the obvious method; but this meant a longer exposure of the men in the open, while as they swung in toward the wood they would have cross-fire from the adjoining positions into their backs. The troops that had reached the edge of the wood drove halfway through on the morning of the 17th, but were withdrawn to make an attack from the west. The reserves sent to hold the line they had gained had a rough and tumble with a German counter-attack, and had to yield a hundred yards. The attack from the west under the flanking fire of Hill 180 managed to dig in and hold on the west side of the wood, level with the line in the wood. This was progress; but it was progress at a terrible cost. The position was too murderous, however thoroughly the men dug, to be maintained. The Lightnings must either go forward or back, or be massacred in their fox-holes.

On the morning of the 18th the support battalions passed through the front line, and, rushing and outflanking machine-gun nests, in a fight that became a scramble of units, each clearing its way as fast as it could, numbers of our men broke through to the northern edge of the wood. All the while the Germans, instead of holding fast to their positions, were acting on the offensive at every opportunity, infiltrating down the ravines, as they tried to creep around isolated parties, and again charging them. No commander could direct his troops under such conditions. It was a fight between individuals and groups acting as their own generals, of German veterans, with four years' experience in this kind of fighting, against the resourceful Lightnings. His artillery gassing the southern edge of the wood to keep back our reserves, the enemy kept forcing in more reserves in his counter-attacks, which gained weight and system until they forced our survivors, by ghastly losses, to retire to their starting point.

Thus far the Germans were still holding the escarpment and citadel and the hills at the edge of the Bourgogne Wood, in line with the southern edge of the Loges Wood, and well south of its northern edge, while the Loges farm, between Grandpré and the Loges Wood, was an outpost of enfilade fire at close quarters. We know how in its night attack just before dawn, though it failed to take the citadel, the left brigade took and held Loges farm. The right brigade was to move at the same time on the wood. Though our artillery had tried to smash the nests, its shells had been unsuccessful among the trees, and when a frontal advance was attempted, it met heavier machine-gun fire than hitherto. At the same time we attacked the wood from another direction, trying for the eastern edge. The Germans had the wood encircled with machine-guns, however. Our charge, as it turned in its swinging movement, met their fire in face, and received machine-gun fire in flank and rear from the village and high ground around the village of Champigneulle. Driven back to its starting point, it closed up its gaps and charged again under this cross-fire of machine-guns and a deluge of gas and high-explosive shells which shattered it.

The brigade had used up all its reserves; the division had none available; Corps could send none. By this time our divisions in the center had gained the Kriemhilde, and were consolidating their gains, and, therefore, events on other parts of the front had their influence in a Corps order to withdraw to the Grandpré-Saint-Juvin road. When the exhausted men in the gas-saturated Loges Wood were told that they were to retreat, they complained. They might be staggering with fatigue, and half-suffocated from wearing their gas masks, but they had been fighting in hot blood at close quarters for the wood. They did not want to yield to their adversary. They were critical of the command which compelled them to retrace their steps in the darkness, which was done in good order, across the levels spattered with the blood of their comrades who had breasted the machine-gun fire.

Every bullet and shell which the men of either brigade of the 78th had received was one less fired at the heroic 42nd in its struggle for the mastery of the treacherous slopes and the wire and trenches of the stronghold of the Chatillon ridge. Their ferocious attacks, made in the hope of gains which the Army knew were impossible, had served another purpose in convincing the Germans that our final drive would concentrate on this flank instead of on the Barricourt ridge to the east of the whale-back. In this final drive the 78th, after hard fighting, was to enjoy its retribution; for it took Loges Wood, and afterward knew the joy of stretching its legs in rapid pursuit for twelve miles. Its casualties were 5,234 for all of its operations.

While we are following the careers of the divisions before the attack of November 1st, we must not forget that the 82nd was still in line on the right of the 78th. It had reached the Kriemhilde on October 11th, and then in the general attack of the 14th penetrated the Kriemhilde, where it bends west from the Chatillon ridge, and it had taken Hill 182 and the other heights to the north and northeast which commanded the defenses of Saint-Juvin. As the result of these actions of determined initiative and heroic sacrifice, one regiment had 12 officers and 332 men fit for duty; another regimental commander reported that eighty per cent of his survivors were unfit for duty, and that the other twenty per cent ought to be on the sick list. However, they could be depended upon until they swooned. The effective rifle strength of the division was 4,300, or less than a third of the normal total for a division. Yet it attacked in support of the 78th's effort against Loges Wood. Then it settled down to holding its lines and patrolling.

Provident General Duncan saved his exhausted men from a part of the strain by skillful front-line reliefs on alternate nights. As the All-Americas might not go into rest as a division, he established a rest camp of his own, where exhausted, slightly gassed, wounded, and sick men had clean clothing, baths, and plenty of hot food, which rehabilitated them into "effectives"; and this enabled him to keep the 82nd in line until the night of October 31st, when the exhaustion of its memorable service in the Aire trough was to rob it of the thrill of pursuing the enemy to the Meuse, which the now rested 77th and 80th, taking its place, were to know. It had taken 900 prisoners, and paid for its success with 6,764 casualties.

So much for the left flank. We have bidden farewell to the Aire valley, whose trough and gap were now behind us; but we were not to be through with the Meuse until the day of the armistice. I approach no part of our fighting in France with a greater sense of incapability than the battle east of the Meuse--a separate battle, so influential in the fortunes of the main battle, which has never received its share of credit. Here every feature of the main battle was repeated in a confined arena which recalled to me the assaults on Port Arthur. I have already described the early operations of the 29th and 33rd in driving the wedge, which we hoped would relieve our Third Corps from long-range flanking fire to which it could not respond; and how they had been checked in the quixotic mission of an immediate conquest of the Borne de Cornouiller, or Hill 378.

As we know, the Borne, about three miles from the Meuse, was the supreme height of the eastern valley wall. Southward in the direction of the attack it sloped down into the steep-walled ravine of the Vaux de Mille Mais, whose eastern end gave into a series of ridges rising to the summit of Hill 370, protecting the Grande Montagne Wood in front as it protected 378 in flank by the Grande Montagne Wood and the famous Molleville farm. Thence an encircling ridge turning southward toward the Verdun forts formed the rim of a bowl. Had the German Army, as planned, withdrawn to the Meuse line, these hills would have been to their defense what the hills of Verdun were to the French defense in the battle of 1916.

Once the heights were taken, except for a series of detached hills, the way was open to the plain of the Woëvre and to Germany. Back of them and on their reverse slopes the Germans had built barracks for their men, and assembled their material for the great Verdun offensive. On the crests and the near slopes they had built concrete pill-boxes at critical points, and arranged a system of defense in the Verdun days, when they had learned by experience the tactical value of every square rod of ground. The approach from the bottom of the bowl--which is a rough description--to the rim was covered by many smaller interlocking and wooded hills and ridges cut by ravines. There was no ravine, it seemed, no part of this pit which was not visible to observers from some one of the heights. The operation of the French Corps, under which our divisions operated, must be fan-shaped, sweeping up the walls of the bowl, as a wedge at any given point would have meant annihilation. The approach to the bowl for our troops was along a road through a valley, which was as warranted in receiving its name as any Death Valley in the war. On the French side of the old trench line this ran through an area of villages in utter ruin from the bombardments of the Verdun battle, then through Samogneux and more ruins, woods, and fields of shell-craters into the valley of the bowl itself.

For five or six miles, then, stretched an area of desolation without any billeting places where troops could rest, except a few rat-infested and odorous, moist dugouts and cellars, roofed by the débris of villages. The young soldier who was going under fire for the first time, as he marched forward past that grayish, mottled, hideous landscape, might see the physical results of war upon earth, trees, and houses. When he came into Death Valley, he was to know its effects upon men. For two or three miles the road was always under shell-fire. By day visible to the enemy's observers, by night his gunners could be sure that guns registered upon it, if they fired into the darkness, would find a target on its congested reaches. It was inadequate to the traffic of the divisions engaged. Troops marching into battle must run its deadly gamut before they could deploy. It was the neck of the fan-shaped funnel of the battle-line. Transport was halted by shell-torn cars and motor-trucks and dead horses until they were removed, and by fresh craters from large calibers until they were refilled. There was no rest for the engineers; all the branches which were not ordinarily in the front line knew what it was to be under fire.

The Illinois men of the 33rd, on the left, after they had crossed the river and reached the slopes of the Borne de Cornouiller on the 9th, could move no farther on their front until the rim of the bowl was taken on their right. They stood off counter-attacks, and continued nagging the enemy until their relief on October 21st, forty-three days after they had gone into line on the left bank of the Meuse, and twenty-six days since, in the attack of September 26th, they had taken Forges Wood in their brilliant swinging maneuver which had been followed by their skillful bridging and crossing of the river. Now the division was to go to the muddy and active Saint-Mihiel sector for a "rest," relieving the 79th, which had had its "rest" and was to return for a part in the last stages of the battle. Even the much traveled, enduring, industrious, and self-reliant infantry of the 33rd had not had such a varied experience as the artillery brigade, which I may mention as a further illustration of how our units were moved here and there. It had been attached in turn to the 89th Division, the 1st Division, the Ninth French Corps, the 91st Division, the 32nd Division, the Army artillery, and finally to the 89th Division for the drive of November 1st, without ever once having served with its own division.

While the 33rd had been maintaining its ground, under orders to attempt no advance, in the east of the Meuse battle, the Blue and Grey 29th, its regiments intermixed at times with French regiments, had been forcing the action among the ravines and woods of the Molleville farm region against the same kind of offensive tactics that the Germans were using in the Loges Wood, and for an equally important object in relation to the plan of our operations as a whole. All parts of its front line and its support positions were being continually gassed. The frequent shifting of its units in relation to the French, in an effort to find some system of making progress up the walls of the rim, were additional vexation in trying to keep organization in hand over such difficult ground, under such persistent and varied fire against the veteran Prussians and Wurtembergers, who were quick to make the most of every opening offered them.

A branch of the Death Valley road, the Crépion road, runs up the eastern slope of the bowl. The point where it passes over the rim was most vital. From a rounded ridge on both sides of the road for a stretch between woods you look down upon the village of Crépion in the foreground and receding slopes in the distance. This point gained might flank the Etraye Wood positions, the Grande Montagne, and eventually Hill 378, the Borne de Cornouiller itself.

Commanding the southern side of the road and approaches to the summit was Ormont Wood, which rose to the crest of a very high hill, 360, only eighteen feet lower than the Borne, which was defended by pill-boxes. On the other side of the road were the Reine and Chênes woods. Beyond these was the Belleu Wood, on the same side of the road. Belleu and Ormont were key points. Belleu was to have as bad as name as Belleau Wood in the Château-Thierry operations.

On October 12th the Blues and Greys of the 29th, coöperating with the French, undertook in an encircling movement, which was complex in its detail, to take the woods on both sides of the roads. This aroused all the spleen of the German artillery. It drew violent counter-attacks from the German infantry, continued in two days of in and out fighting. Successive charges reached the edges of Ormont. There under a tempest of artillery fire they looked up the slope through the thickets toward the summit of 360, where the machine-guns were emitting too murderous a plunging fire to permit them either to advance or to hold all the ground they had gained. On the north side of the road Reine Wood and a part of Chênes Wood were taken against counter-attacks. This was encouraging. Though it did not seem to make the capture of Ormont easier, it opened the way for an attack on the 15th toward Molleville farm on the left and Grande Montagne on the right. Much ground was gained on the left, and some on the right, where the fire from the Etraye ridge stopped the advance.

We were slowly working our way toward the rim, using each bit of woods or ridge which we won as a lever for winning another. All the while we were an interior line, attacking up a gallery against an exterior line whose ends could interlock their cross-fire. On the 16th, by dint of the sheer pluck of units dodging artillery concentrations and zones of machine-gun fire, and wearing down machine-gun nests, further progress was made on the Grande Montagne. The 29th, always under shell-fire and gas, had been attacking and resisting counter-attacks for eight days. It was not yet "expended" by any means; but it was glad to find that another American division was coming into the arena to relieve some of its own as well as French elements.

Had we any division whose veterans might feel, as the result of their experience, that they were familiar with all kinds of warfare, it was the 26th, the "Yankee" Division, National Guard of New England. As I have mentioned in my first book, the Yankees had learned not to expect a sinecure. Assignments which meant victory with theatrical ease never came to them. If four divisions were to draw lots for four places in line, they took it for granted that the worst would go to the 26th, which had become expert in gripping the rough end of a stick. The second division to arrive in France, the 26th was put into trenches, after a short period of training, in the ugly Chemin des Dames region, away from the American sector. From there it was sent direct into the mire of the Toul sector under the guns of Mont Sec, where it resisted the powerful thrust of German shock troops at Seicheprey. The length of time it remained in the Toul sector, and the length of the line it held there, might well have turned it into a division of mud wallowers; but it was able, on the contrary, to make some offensive thrusts of its own, and only longed for the time when it might have something like decent ground for an attack. From Toul it went to relieve the Marines and Regulars of the 2nd in the violent Pas-Fini sector on the Château-Thierry road, where, after more than two weeks in line, instead of having the period of rest and reorganization given to divisions before a big attack, it drove through to Epieds in the counter-offensive. Then at Saint-Mihiel, where it was with the French on the western side of the salient, by rapid marching it swung across to Vigneulles to meet the veteran 1st in closing the salient.

If there were any replacements in the 26th who felt apprehension as they came up Death Valley, the older Yankees, in the name of all the mud, shells, gas, machine-gun fire, and hardships they had endured, soon gave them the heart of veteran comradeship by their example. Saint-Mihiel had been revenge for them. It had set a sharper edge on their spirits. Artillery and all the other units having long served together, the Yankees were to be "expended" as other veteran divisions had been for a great occasion in the battle--an occasion in keeping with their tough experience. It was not for them to have the straight problem of charging a trench system, but to maneuver in and out of these ravines and woods, facing this way and that against appalling difficulties. Maine forests, Green Mountains, White Mountains, little Rhode Island, and Massachusetts and Connecticut had traditions in their history in the background of the fresh traditions the Yankees had won in France. With the Blue and Greys already in, and the 79th coming, the east of the Meuse battle became somewhat of a family affair of the original colonies. The French had great respect for the 26th. Much was expected of it, and it was to do much.

It went to the attack immediately on the morning of the 23rd. On the left it coöperated with the 29th, which, feeling rejuvenated in the presence of Americans on its flank, concentrated its remaining effectives for an ambitious effort which carried the Americans through to the Etraye ridge, and even to the important Pylone, or observatory, before the advance elements were stopped. This was the high watermark for the Blue and Grey, splendidly won. Without trying to follow the detail of the maneuver, the 26th, as soon as it was known that its Etraye ridge attack was succeeding, put in a reserve battalion and rushed for the Belleu, that wood on the east of the Crépion road, just short of the vital point on the rim that I have mentioned. In the impetuosity of new troops in their first battle, and the spryness and wisdom of veterans, this battalion swept over the machine-guns and through the wood, which the 29th had already entered, to meet a savage reception.

This was shaking the whole plan of German defense. It was an insulting slap in the face to German tactics. Just over the crest beyond Belleu, as I have already mentioned, the slope ran down to the plain of the Woëvre. The German had no shell-fire to spare now for the other bank of the Meuse. Batteries whose fire had been the curse of the Third Corps swung round in concentration on that exposed patch of woods. The machine-gunners in the pill-boxes and log-covered redoubts were reinforced by others. It was a wonderful thing to have gone through Belleu Wood; but in order to have held, the Yankees would have needed something less permeable to bullets and shell-fragments, and subject to gas, than a "stern and rock-bound coast" determination. The battalion had to withdraw from the wood during the night, which was illumined by a fury of bursting shells.