Part 5

The 79th, with men from both sides of Mason and Dixon's line, united North and South in its ranks. Since its arrival from the States it had hardly had time to become acclimatized. In place of its own artillery, which was not yet equipped, it had not even a homogeneous artillery brigade. Of American artillery (aside from seventeen of the French batteries upon which we were relying so largely for our preliminary bombardment) it had three regiments, less six batteries, from the experienced 32nd Division, and one regiment from the 41st Division. Though the 79th had never been under fire before, though it had only training-camp experience, it was expected, after taking the first-line fortifications, to cover the most ground of any division on the first day, and though it did not have to fight its way through any important woods it was to proceed along the valley of the Montfaucon road, passing over formidable ridges which were under the observation of woods on either flank capable of concealing any amount of enemy artillery.

V

ON THE MEUSE SIDE

The ground of the Verdun battle--The Crown Prince's observatory--The Third Corps to move the right flank down the Meuse--Businesslike quality of the 4th Division--A marshy front and no roads--Swinging movement of the Blue Ridge Division--The Illinois Division to secure the right flank--Dominating heights east of the Meuse.

At this point let us consider the missions of the three corps. Liggett's First, with the 77th, 28th, and 35th Divisions, had the problem of the left flank, the conquest of the Argonne Forest, the valley of the Aire, and the heights of the eastern valley wall, which was so essential to supporting the movement of Cameron's Fifth Corps in the center. The Fifth, with the 91st, 37th, and 79th Divisions, was to make the bulge of the sweep toward the main crests of the whale-back. Its objective on the first day was the town of Montfaucon, whose whitish ruins on the distant hilltop pretty well commanded all the terrain on the corps front. Here the Crown Prince through his telescope, at the safe distance which was in keeping with the strong sense of self-preservation of the Hohenzollerns, had watched some of the attacks on Verdun.

This sector was near enough to the battleground of Verdun to have participated in some of the volume of shell-fire which had left no square yard of earth in No Man's Land, or for half a mile on either side of the trenches, untouched by explosions. The thicker the shell-craters, the more difficult it is to keep uniformity of movement. They are useful for cover for a halted charge, but for a charge that is intended to go through, as ours was, they meant that troops must pick their way over unstable footing. In view of the possibilities of French counter-attacks the Germans had hardly been negligent in perfecting all their defenses during the Verdun battle.

The groups of woods south of Montfaucon and north and west of Avocourt was the heart of the German defense against the Fifth Corps. Against Cheppy Wood which covered Vauquois the French, in 1915 when small offensives were still the rule, had made many attacks in order to gain the dominating position of Vauquois; and later, in the Verdun battle and subsequent offensive operations by the French, the Germans had used the woods as shelter for reserves, which drew persistent shell-fire of large caliber from the French. A thick second growth had sprouted up around the shell-craters and broken timbers, which afforded concealment to the enemy and confused any platoon or company commander in keeping his men together and in touch with the platoon or company on either flank.

The assignment of such an ambitious objective to these three divisions required an abounding faith in their manhood, initiative, and training upon the part of an audacious command. I may add that before the attack the Germans had taken one prisoner from the 79th Division, which they thus identified; they did not know of the presence of the other two divisions. As the 79th had never been in line before, they were warranted in thinking that a green division could be there for no other purpose than the usual trench training which we had systematically given all our divisions before they went into serious action. When the 79th came rushing on toward Montfaucon on the morning of the 26th, the enemy's surprise was warranted by all their canons of military experience.

The Third Corps on the right flank, with its right on the Meuse River, had in a broad sense the same mission as the First in supporting the main drive toward the whale-back by the Fifth. On its left in _liaison_ with the 79th was the 4th, the only regular division in the attack, under Major-General John L. Hines, whose ability was later rewarded by a corps command. Regular divisions had a certain advantage in the assignment of experienced professional officers and in the confidence of the staff in the value of regular traditions which must be maintained. Though in detached units, the 4th had had a thorough trial in the Marne counter-offensive of July 18th to 24th. Then it had been swung round, and as an intact division had taken over from the 42nd, after the heights of the Ourcq were gained, for the final pursuit to the Vesle, where it had a taste of shells, gas, and machine-gun fire in the "pocket" before it was relieved by the 77th and started for Saint-Mihiel. The 4th was a thoroughly regular and singularly efficient division, disinclined to advertisement, doing its duty systematically and unflinchingly.

At the outset of its advance it would have to cross marshy ground and the Forges Brook, from which the footbridges had naturally been removed by the enemy. On the left it was to keep up with the swift progress of the 79th, with its course dominated on the left by the Montfaucon heights, and on the right by the heights east of the Meuse--of which we shall hear much before the story of the Meuse-Argonne battle is told. There were wicked slopes and woods to be conquered. Indeed, its position on the right flank of the 79th confronted as stern and complex difficulties as that of the 37th on the left flank of the 79th.

On its right was the 80th Division under Major-General Adelbert Cronkhite, sturdy, thick-set, cut out of sandstone, who faced the world all four-square with his Blue Ridge men. The 80th had done well at the British front, and had been in reserve at Saint-Mihiel. Though it had its own divisional artillery and its units complete, this was its first experience in a drive through first-line fortifications for an extensive objective. If it had not so far to go as the 4th, its trying maneuver in swinging toward the Meuse included passing between the Juré and Forges Woods, which, unless cleared of the enemy, would enfilade its advance with machine-gun fire.

The 33rd Division, Illinois National Guard, had the extreme right. I have mentioned already the preparation which the 33rd had had in the August offensive with the British. Major-General George Bell was calm and suave, but a stalwart disciplinarian. Before leaving the States he had eliminated many officers who for temperament, physical disability, or other reasons appeared less serviceable abroad than at home. This enabled him to travel to France without excess baggage, and to arrive there with his organization knit together by a harmonious and spirited personnel. As for his men, they were from Illinois and of the Illinois National Guard, as you may learn in Cairo, Springfield, or Chicago, for Illinois had been one of the forward states in supporting its Guardsmen.

The 33rd was to swing up along the Meuse by noon of the first day, and to rest there as a pivot for the Third Corps,--a delicate operation. Its position was as picturesque as its record was various, in its service first with the British under the Australian Corps, then with a French, and later with an American Corps. If the war had lasted long enough the Illinois men might have been sent to serve on the Italian front, to complete their itinerary of military cosmopolitanism. At its back now was the Mort Homme, or Dead Man's Hill, whose mention in the communiqués during the Verdun fighting was frequent in the days when the world hung on the news of a few hundred yards gained or lost on the right or left bank of the Meuse. There under countering barrages from the quick-firers and the plowing by high explosive shells, Frenchman and German had groveled in the torn earth, mixed with blood and flesh, between the throes of hectic charges for advantage. The Germans won the hill, but eventually the French regained it. Then silence fell on the shambles where the unrecognizable dead rested, and above them rose not the red poppies of the poet's pictures, but weed and ragged grass from the edges of the shell-craters.

Such was the texture of the rising undulating carpet unrolled to the northeast over the battlefield of Verdun. In the foreground it was variegated by the ruins of villages and those exclamation points of desolation, the limbless trees, which melted into its greenish-ashen sweep over the fort-crowned hills in the distance. Beyond them was the plain of the Woëvre; and beyond that was Germany. An occasional shell-burst showed that the volcano of war still simmered; its report was an echo of the crashing thunders of the past, which we were to awaken again in the valley of the Meuse.

The Meuse seemed only a larger Aire, asking its way sinuously in this broken country. As vision followed its course past the German trench system in front of the Mort Homme and past the area of destruction, it was arrested by the bald ridge of the Borne de Cornouiller, or Hill 378. Mark the name! It will have a sinister part in our battle. Ten of our divisions were to know its wrath without knowing its name. Higher than any of the Verdun forts, except Douaumont, and higher than the heights of the whale-back, it had been in the possession of the Germans since August, 1914. From its summit observers could give the targets to the countless guns hidden in the woods and ravines of its reverse slopes.

An offensive against frontal positions resembles the swinging open of double doors, with their hinges at the points where the first-line fortifications are broken. The farther the doors are swung, the greater the danger of enemy pressure on the hinges, whose protection is the tactician's nightmare. In broadening his front of offensive operations by alternating attacks Marshal Foch may be said to have been opening several doors which were to become the alternately advancing panels of a screen.

The Fourth French Army was the left flank of our army in the Meuse-Argonne. As its left, and therefore the left of the whole Franco-American attack, was making only a slight advance at the start, it was little exposed. Our Third Corps had the right flank of the whole movement, the Meuse River being the hinge, with the swing toward the west bank of the Meuse, which bends westward toward the heights of the whale-back on the Corps front. This gave it a frontal command of the west bank, while it put the German trench system on the east bank in the right rear of our line of general movement. Though the Meuse was an unfordable stream, and we held the bridgeheads to prevent any infantry counter-attack, this could not prevent cross-fire upon us from artillery and even from machine-guns. As from the Mort Homme one had a visual comprehension of the mission of the Third Corps, which was more informing, not to say more thrilling, than the study of maps at Headquarters, the inevitable question came to mind as to what was being done for our protection on the east bank. The answer was that French artillery and infantry were to undertake "exploitation." This was a familiar word, which could not intimidate the artillery on the Borne de Cornouiller. Forces in exploitation on the flanks, however encouraging in battle plans, form an elastic term in application, dependent upon what sacrifices they will make in the thankless task of diverting the enemy's fire to themselves. With the heights of the Meuse commanding one flank and the heights of the whale-back commanding the other, the Third Corps was to operate in the Meuse trough as in the pit of an amphitheater, striving to fight its way up the seats under a plunging fire from the gallery.

Still, there was nothing else to be done. Someone had to take punishment on the flanks for the support of the drive on the center. The grueling which the Third Corps was to endure in advancing on one side of the trough of a river valley beyond the enemy line on the other was as certain to entail severe losses as was the mission of the First Corps against the Argonne Forest and down the valley of the Aire. The duty of all concerned, in an offensive which was organized in haste in the hope of winning a great prize by springing into the breach of opportunity, was not to hesitate in consideration of handicaps, but to minimize them as much as possible in the initial plan, and then to strike in fullness of confidence and of all the power at our command. The strategy of the battle was daring in conception, and resolute in execution.

VI

WE BREAK THROUGH

French gunners at home in the landscape--Sleep by regulations in spite of suspense--"Over the top" not a rush--Difficulty of keeping to a time-table--Even with a guiding barrage--What barbed wire means--And the trench mazes beyond--Moving up behind the infantry.

The Pacific Slope, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and New York thus had the honor of the initial attack in our greatest battle, in which men from every state in the Union were to have a part before it was won. In that area of rolling country from Verdun to the Bar-le-Duc-Clermont road, which had been stealthily peopled by our soldiers, the swarming of their khaki was relieved by scattered touches of the blue of the Frenchmen who had come to assist us. Though ours was the flesh and blood which was to do the fighting--every infantryman was an American--the French were filling the gaps in our equipment which we could have filled ourselves, as I have said, only by delaying the Meuse-Argonne offensive until the spring of 1919 as we had originally planned.

Under their camouflage curtains in an open field, or in the edge of a woods, or under the screen of bushes which fringed a gully, the groups of French gunners seemed at home in a landscape that was native to them while it was alien to the Americans. When at rest their supple lounging attitudes had a certain defiance of formal military standards, as if French democracy were flouting Prussian militarism. When the order for firing came, the transition was to the alertness of the batter stepping up to the plate, and their swift movements had the grace and confidence of professional mastery which had long put behind it the rudimentary formalities of the drill-ground. They seemed a living part of the infantry, their pulse-beats answering the infantry's steps. Never were guests more welcome than they to our army. We could not have too many French guns--or cannon, as our communiqués called them in recognition of the unfamiliarity of our public with military terms--playing on the enemy's trenches and barbed wire in the preliminary bombardment which blazed a way for the charge.

I have known the suspense preceding many attacks while the darkness before dawn was slashed by the flashes from nearby gun mouths and splashed by the broad sheets of flame from distant gun mouths. There is nothing more contrary to nature than that the quiet hours of the night should be turned into an inferno of crashes and, at the moment of dawn, when the world refreshed looks forward to a new day, men should be sent to their death. The suspense before the Meuse-Argonne attack was greater than before the Somme attack, when the British new army, after its months of preparation and nearly two years of training, was sent against the German line; it was greater than before Saint-Mihiel, our own first offensive.

At Saint-Mihiel we had hints that the enemy would oppose us with only a rearguard action. Our mission would be finished with the first onslaught; we had only to cut the salient; the result was measurably certain, while in the Meuse-Argonne it was on the knees of the gods. The Germans could afford to yield at Saint-Mihiel; they could not in the Meuse-Argonne, where, if informed of the character of our plan, they might make a firm resistance in the first-line fortifications or at such points in them as suited their purpose in seeking to draw us into salients, to be slaughtered by enfilade fire as the French were in their spring offensive of 1917.

After the preliminary bombardment began at midnight, our American Army world, as detached in its preoccupation with its own existence, as much apart from the earth, as if it were on another planet, waited on the dawn of morning, which was the dawn of battle. The stars which were out in their distant serenity had a matter-of-fact appeal to generals to whom a clear day meant no quagmires to impede the advance. It was the business of all except the gunners and the truck-drivers, or of those speeding on errands to tie up any loose ends of organization, to try to force a little sleep. Even the infantry, with the shells screaming over their heads, were supposed to make the most of their inertia in rest which would give them reserve strength for the work ahead.

This was in keeping with the formula which had been studied and worked out through experience. No one not firing shells could be of any service in smashing in strong points or cutting barbed wire. Particularly it behooved high staff officers and commanders to lie down, with minds closed to all thoughts of mistakes already made or apprehensions of future mistakes, in order to be fortified with steady nerves, clear vision and stored vitality for the decisions which they would have to make when they had news of the progress of the action. The plans for the attack were set; they might not be changed now; the attack must be precipitated. Aides protected their generals from interruption, and arranged that they should have food to their liking, and as comfortable a bed as possible. No genius composing a sonnet or a sonata could have been more securely protected in his seclusion than a corps commander. The rigorous drill which had formed the men in the front line to be the pawns of superior will was applied to keep the superior will in training for its task.

General Pershing kept faith with the formula, and many others followed his example, though junior staff officers worked through the night. They were plentiful, and "expendable," as the army saying goes, as expendable in nervous prostration as were in wounds and death the young lieutenants who were to lead their platoons into the hell of machine-gun fire. Waiting--waiting--waiting while the guns thundered were the ambulances beside the road, the divisional transport, the ammunition and engineer trains, the aviators with their planes tuned up and ready, the doctors and nurses at the dressing-stations and evacuation hospitals, and the reserve troops in billets. Officially through his orders everyone concerned knew only his own part, but all knew without asking that an unprecedented ordeal was coming.

It was easier for French and British veterans, familiarized by other offensives with the roar and the flashes of artillery, to relax than for Americans who were having the experience for the first time. With sufficient practice one may learn to sleep with a six-inch howitzer battery in an adjoining field shaking the earth. Many times during the Meuse-Argonne battle I have seen our own veterans giving proof of such hardihood; but on this night of September 25th it was not in human nature for all the thousands who were to have no sleep the next day or the next night to summon oblivion to their surroundings. Those who fell asleep slept with nerves taut with anticipation and in the consciousness of a nightmare, in which the rending thunders were mixed with reflection upon their own arduous efforts and their part in the future. Everyone was a runner crouched for the pistol-shot, as he awaited the dawn. The great test for which all had prepared individually and collectively for two years was coming tomorrow.

With the first flush of thin light the observation balloons had risen in stately dignity from the earth mist, and the planes had taken to the sky and swept out over the enemy lines: the combat planes seeking foes and the observers to watch the progress of the charge or enemy movements or the location of batteries or of machine-gun nests which were harassing our infantry. Mobilization by the aviators for the offensive had not been hampered by the problems of one-way and two-way roads. They flew over from Saint-Mihiel the afternoon before or on the morning the battle began.

At 5.30, just as a moving man would be visible a few yards away, from the Meuse to the western edge of the Argonne, where we had our _liaison_ with the French who advanced at the same moment, our men left the old French trenches and started for the German trenches. Everyone is familiar with the phrase "going over the top," yet despite the countless descriptions everyone who saw an attack for the first time remarked, "I didn't know it was like that!" The system of the advance on the morning of September 26th accorded with the accepted practice of the time. In their familiarity with the system soldiers and correspondents have taken it for granted that what was common knowledge to them was common knowledge to all the world. Only when they returned home did they realize their error, and learn that ignorance of fundamentals ingrained in army experience had made their narratives Greek to all who had not been in action.

The average man is slow to yield his idea that a charge is an impetuous sweep. It sounds more real to say that "the boys rushed" than to say that they advanced with the sedateness of a G. A. R. parade on Decoration Day, which is more like what really happened. Indeed, they simply walked, unheroic as that may seem; and from high ground, or better still from a plane flying low, an observer saw to the limit of vision right and left men proceeding at a set and regular pace. The more uniform and the more automatic this was, the better. On closer view every man, except in height and physique, was a duplicate of the others, in helmet, in pack, in gas mask, in every detail of uniform, even in the way he carried his rifle with its glistening bayonet, which was the only relief to khaki on the background of somber-tinted earth.