Part 9

Leaving the account of each Corps' and division's part in its sector to future chapters, I shall conclude this chapter with the results of the fighting of our army as a whole for the succeeding days to October 1st, when we were to realize that Saint-Mihiel was the quick victory of a field maneuver compared to the realism of war at its worst in the Meuse-Argonne. When night fell on the 27th, our transport direction appreciated still more pregnantly the limitations of our roads for our deep concentrations. Each road, where it passed over the old chasms of the trenches,--where the rats now had the dugouts to themselves, and the silence of a deserted village prevailed except for the rumble of the struggling trucks over the new causeways--was pumping the blood from the veins of the by-roads to the rear, through its over-worked valves, into the spreading arterial system of the by-roads in the field of advance. Once on the other side, the drivers felt the relief of a man extricated from the pressure of a crowd at a gate, who finds himself in the open. Lights being forbidden, night was less of a blessing and more of a handicap to the transport than to the infantry. The argument that it secured the roads from observation, which might mean artillery concentrations, had little appeal to the average army chauffeur. He was not worried about shell-fire. If he had not been under it before, he was curious to know what it was like.

Darkness only made road repairs more onerous and slow. The engineers could not see to gather material or where to place it to do the most good. Unexpected difficulties appeared in the midst of the shadows of men and vehicles. The most calculating of staff heads, who wished to neglect no detail in his instructions, had not suggested that anyone connected with artillery, signals, or transport should sleep until he had overtaken the infantry, except as drivers might take cat-naps between the fitful pulsations of traffic. Men at the rear who were mere passengers waiting on others to clear the way felt a certain disloyalty if they slept in the face of the hurry call from the front.

The partisanship of the spectators "pulling" for the home team is a faint comparison with the partisanship of war, with comrades asking for more than your cheers. The cry of "Come on! Take hold here!" in the darkness would instantly awaken any man, nodding in his seat on a caisson or truck, into welcome action. Now he had a chance really to help, instead of exercising telepathic pressure on the Germans. He ceased to feel that he was a slacker. Shoulders to the wheel with the last ounce of your strength! Timbers taken out of dugouts, stones dug out of the earth with bare hands to be filled into sloughs! Break a way, make a way,--but "get there!"

As a people, when we want something done in a hurry, we are no more inclined to count the cost than to stint our efforts. Ditched trucks and caissons were the casualties of the charge of our transport, which was no less furious in spirit than that of our infantry. Moving a broken-down truck off the road of course meant delay for the trucks behind it; and it meant, too, that someone at the front would be asking in vain for the supplies that it carried. But that pitcher of milk was spilled; on to the market with other pitchers.

Anyone who thought that the going would be easy or troubles cease on the other side of the old trench system was soon disillusioned. The Germans had blown up some roads as well as bridges. Our own shells in the preliminary bombardment had made shell-craters and dropped trees as obstacles. We must not forget that for four years there had been a belt three or four miles wide beyond the old trench system from which any but army life had been excluded. No roads had been kept up except those which served a military purpose. The Germans, partly because of their rubber famine, had depended largely on light railways rather than motor-trucks for sending up supplies. Where they did not use a main road, it was of no interest to them how far it had fallen into disrepair. Maps did not take bad spots into account, and aërial scouting did not reveal them.

Dirt country roads had been utterly neglected. We must use them all to meet the demands of our immense force. Our heavy trucks and artillery wheels soon cut them with deep ruts. When the engineers were not on hand, each battery and convoy negotiated a passage for itself and left those in the rear to do the same. Freshets had washed out some sections, and undermined others. Embankments had fallen away into swamps, where a side-slipping truck would sink in up to its hubs. If shoulders to the wheel failed when artillery striking across fields ran into ditches and holes, snatch ropes were used.

Each convoy must locate the unit which it was serving. The rolling kitchens that had worked their way forward could not deliver their warm meals until they had found the impatiently ravenous troops. Artillery commanders must grope about for their assigned positions, or wait until they were assigned positions. They must have their ammunition as well as guns up. Officers bearing instructions from the staff were as puzzled as the recipient about their meaning, as they studied the map by the discreet flash of an electric torch, and sought to identify landmarks shrouded in the thick night mist under the canopy of darkness. Lightly wounded men moved counter to the streams of traffic and of reserves, who might also be uncertain of their exact destination. Men with bad wounds in the body tottered across the fields and dropped by the roadside. Others who could not move must be found and brought in by searchers.

It was not surprising that some of our leaders had not yet learned to apply in the stress of action and the conflict of reports the principle that when committed to one plan it is better to go through with it than to create confusion by inaugurating another which may seem better. Half-executed orders were countermanded and changed and then changed again; and this led to trucks trying to turn round in the narrow roads, and to eddies in that confused scene of the hectic striving of each man and unit to do his part. The effect suggested a premature dress rehearsal of a play on a stage without lights, while the stage-hands were short of sets and the actors were still dependent upon reading their parts.

When morning came, few rolling kitchens indeed had reached the objective of the men's stomachs with their cargo. Our heavy artillery was still struggling in the rear. Only a portion of our light artillery was up. Where our troops were fresh on the first day, they were now already tired. The Germans had made the most of the night. Their reserves which had arrived included the 5th Guard Division, already on the way when we began the battle. We needed our heavy artillery to pound roads and villages, and to counter artillery which the Germans had brought into action. Against the increase of German machine-guns we needed the rolling barrages of our light artillery even more than on the first day after we were through the trench system. Renewing the attack over the full length of our twenty miles of front, we were to advance with our moving shields irregularly distributed and vulnerable in most places. Any observer could see soon after daylight, in the widespread puffs of German shells on the landscape, that the inevitable had happened, as in all previous offensives. The enemy artillery had other targets than our infantry; he was laying a barrier to the infantry's support on the roads, halting the columns of traffic, forcing reserves to cover, and making new shell-holes in the roads to be filled by the transport and engineer workers.

The important thing on the second day was to take Montfaucon. On the ridges west of the town the German infantry, artillery, and machine-gunners were utilizing the positions which he had laid out months before the attack. He fought stubbornly here as in Cuisy Wood and on the hills on the left; but buffeted as they were, our men, under firm orders to keep on attacking, conquered both systems. This cracked the shell of the Montfaucon defenses. Before noon we were in the town.

There are those who say that if we had taken Montfaucon on the first day, we might have reached the crest of the whale-back itself on the second or third day, and looked down on the apron sweeping toward the Lille-Metz railway. I fear that they belong to the school of "ifs," which may write military history in endless and self-entertaining conjecture. They forget the lack of road repairs; the lack of shields to continue the advance; and the interdictory shell-fire which the enemy laid down on the ruins of the town and on the arterial roads which center there. If we had taken Montfaucon on the first day, I think that there would still have been a number of other "ifs" between us and the crest. Of course, once we possessed Montfaucon and its adjoining heights, the enemy's infantry was not going to resist in down-hill fighting, though he harassed us with artillery and machine-gun fire as we descended the irregular slopes of the valleys beyond.

Our ambition was soaring for a decisive success on the 28th. We had been delayed a day, but we should yet carry through our daring programme. Forced optimism saw our field artillery coming up, our roads improving, our transport somewhat more systematized, and tried to forget other factors; but the fatigue of all hands was greater; the vitality of our troops was weakening for want of proper food. Our heavy artillery, and indeed some of our light artillery, was still struggling in the rear. Our artillery ammunition supply was insufficient to feed the guns all the shells they would need when dawn proved that the Germans had brought up still more artillery on the second night. There were the heights of the whale-back before us, with the first great step in their conquest behind us. Attack was the thing, attack from the Forest's edge to the Meuse. The more time we gave the enemy, the more time he would have to fortify and bring up reserves. Necessity accepted no excuses from subordinate commanders. Drive, and again drive; keep moving; the enemy would eventually yield. He must yield. Once we broke his resistance, then the going would be swift and easy against his shattered units.

The 28th was a critical day: the day when it was to be decided whether or not we were to fight a siege operation, or to carry the whale-back in a series of rapidly succeeding rushes,--though I think that the decision really came with the signs of developing resistance on the morning of the 27th.

Our divisions put in their fresh reserves; they would admit no word of discouragement. Artillerymen who had been at work for two nights and two days tried to bring their guns close up to the infantry. All the remaining tanks were called into service. With the forced burst of energy which may be mistaken for "second wind," we everywhere made gains. Our right had moved along the Meuse to south of Brieulles, which with the bend of the river westward narrowed our front. On the left we had reached Exermont ravine. On the 29th we tried for Brieulles; for Gesnes; for the ravine; and for the escarpments of the Forest, points which the attack of the third day had developed as the locked doors which we must smash through to give us purchase for another general attack. There was a certain fitfulness in these efforts, as of a fire dying down blown into a spitful flame. In the trough of the Aire we were under the raging artillery fire from the heights on either side; and in the trough of the Meuse from the heights across the river and from the whale-back, which I shall describe in later chapters. In the valleys beyond Montfaucon and the neighboring heights we faced the first slopes of the whale-back, which were the covering positions for the Kriemhilde and Freya Stellungen, new trench systems utilizing all the natural strength of the heights as a main line of defense by an aroused enemy in strong force.

Our army might now take counsel of necessity, if not of prudence. In the future we must hack and stab our way. Meanwhile we must have rest for the tired troops, or we must have fresh troops, before another considerable offensive effort. A hundred millions of population at home did not mean that we had unlimited trained man-power to draw on in France. Our divisional reserves were exhausted. Replacements were not arriving in sufficient numbers to fill gaps from casualties and sickness. We were not only fighting from the Meuse to the Argonne and holding the line of our new front at Saint-Mihiel, but we had four excellent fresh divisions just going into attack in British and French offensives, not to mention our divisions in tranquil sectors. If we had had more men for the front, we could not have fed them. If we had made a farther advance, we could not have kept our artillery and transport up with the troops. We needed more motor-trucks, horses, and every kind of equipment for that insatiable maw. If we had had more transport, we should hardly have had room for it. The arterial road facilities over the old trench system were as yet unequal to caring for the number of our troops. The bottle necks could not meet the demands of the bottle. Our appetite for victory had exceeded our digestion.

Army reports which spoke of "poor visibility" referred to the morale of the men as "excellent." There was no question of the "poor visibility" or of the morale of men who were well enough to be in line, for they were always ready to fight. The chill October rains had begun. We could expect little more fair weather. When, already, one needed a heavy blanket over him in bed, our men sent into action, for mobility's sake, without blankets were shivering at night on the wet ground, not under the roof of the stars but in the penetrating cold mist which hugged the earth when it was not raining. This and the lack of proper food and of sleep brought on diarrhea, and the pitiful sight on the roads of the sick and gassed was a reminder of how quickly war may wreck the delicate human machine which takes so long to build. In a few days sturdy youth with springy steps in the pink of health had become pale and emaciated, looking ten years older as they dragged their feet in painful slowness.

Some divisions had suffered more exhaustion than others. All their reserves had been crowded in to meet an emergency. They had given to the limit of their strength in a few days, while others might spread theirs over weeks. At close quarters with the enemy we dug in, with machine-gun nests and defensive lines of our own to repulse his counter-attacks, while the message of our own piecemeal attacks, by which we sought to maintain our personal mastery over him, was: "We are only gathering our strength. This is our battle. We are coming at you again--soon." Thus established in our gains, in temporary stalemate, we might withdraw some divisions for rest. This meant fewer mouths to feed, lessening the strain on our transport. Other divisions had rest by the alternate withdrawal of regiments and brigades.

X

BY THE RIGHT FLANK

Two weeks of reconnaissance by the 33rd on the right--Surprising the enemy by charging through a swamp--Careful planning gives complete success by noon--Nothing more but build a road and wait--Two belts of woods in front of the 80th--The enemy must hold at the second belt--Which he does with enfilade artillery, gas, and a counter-attack from Brieulles--More artillery support necessary before the defenses of the town, beyond the belts, could be taken--The 4th does its first bit in workmanlike fashion--But cannot get beyond the foot of the whale-back without its stalled artillery--The Corps digs in as it can and waits.

By the right flank, left flank, and center! Every action, whether fought by a thousand or a million men, resolves itself into these simple elements of strategic control, which is as old as war. In our Meuse-Argonne drive the right and left flanks elbowed their way down the two river valleys to the conquest of the approaches on either side of the heights of the whale-back, which the center was attacking in front. To think in these terms is to think in Corps; and to think in Corps is to think in divisions.

On the right of Bullard's Third Corps in the trough of the Meuse was the 33rd Division, Illinois National Guard. It was the first American division to arrive on the Meuse-Argonne line, taking September 7th-9th from a French division the sector which our whole Third Corps was later to occupy. A single American division assigned to such a broad front of quiet trenches would not arouse the enemy's suspicions that we were planning a major offensive. On the contrary, it might be an excellent mask for our battle preparations.

Thus the 33rd had two weeks of actual trench occupation in which to familiarize itself with the enemy positions. These resourceful Illinois men, who had seen much and learned much in having already served with a British, an Australian, a French, and an American Corps, were just the kind to make the most of their advantage, being naturally of an inquiring mind and not timid, though shrewd, in their methods of inquiry. Before the attack, in making room for the other two divisions of the Corps in their stealthy approach, they were side-slipped to the right, where they faced the river bottoms of the Meuse. At their back was the scarred slope of the Mort Homme, and in their sight were the other famous hills of the Verdun battle.

The mission of the 33rd was as picturesque and appealing as its surroundings. As the hinge of the whole movement, on the pivot of the river bank, it was to swing round in a half circle until its front was secured on the Meuse, at a right angle to the German front line on the opposite bank. This was to be accomplished by noon, after which the 33rd had only to dig in and hold fast. My reference elsewhere to the difficulty of maneuvering troops even in face of no opposition particularly applies to this sweeping right wheel. There was the Forges brook, as well as the trench systems to cross. On the right of the line was the Forges Wood, and on the left was the Juré Wood, which gave cover for machine-guns, if they were not overcome, to play a flanking fire on the center. Forges Wood was the real problem. Its machine-gun nests were protected by formidable defenses where the Germans thought them necessary. At other points they depended upon morasses which they thought impassable; and they knew the river bottoms thoroughly as their avenue of advance in their repeated attacks for the mastery of the Mort Homme in the Verdun battle. However, the inquiring Illinois men made their own investigations most thoroughly, if covertly, without accepting the reputation of German thoroughness as a guarantee that there were no openings.

As a result they not only disagreed with the German view, but took counsel of their conviction in strategy which was to lull the enemy in his own conviction of his security and of their amateurishness. They had time to work out the plan by thorough instruction in every detail. In the first stage of the advance they had to descend a steep slope and cross the Forges brook. There they were to halt on a road on the other side of No Man's Land, to form up for the final act any units that had been delayed or become mixed. Being an accurate, card-index kind of division, the 33rd's records show that the road was reached in fifty-seven minutes, and that at the end of twenty minutes every man was in his place according to schedule.

With the left regiment swinging past the Forges Wood, this might have exposed its flank, if the action of the right had not been properly timed; for everything depended upon each unit carrying out its part in the team-work punctually. Charging up to their hips in slime and up to their necks in water, the Illinois men proved that the swamps were not impassable. They took duckboards from the trenches and threw them over the stretches of barbed wire which protected the Wood where the swamps did not. Just as the defenders of the Wood were turning their machine-guns on the targets on their flanks, the right regiment "jumped" them in front. This gave them an opportunity for to-the-death resistance by firing in two directions; but they were too confused in the shattering of all their preconceptions to make use of it in face of those mud-plastered Americans springing bolt into their midst. They yielded readily. The swinging left had put the Juré Wood behind it, and, with only broken elements of the enemy now in its path, the 33rd had its whole line on the bank at noon. The right hinge of the Army secure, the maneuver had been so beautifully made and it was such a complete success that it attracted less attention than if the division had been obliged to endure the very hard fighting which skill and foresight had prevented.

As the booty of its swift combing advance, the 33rd had taken 1,450 German prisoners, who wondered just what had happened to them and why, and seven 6-inch howitzers, two 110-millimeter guns, twenty pieces of field artillery, not to mention some trench mortars, fifty-seven machine-guns, a light railway, and a well-stocked engineer depot. The 33rd's own loss was 2 officers and 34 men killed, and 2 officers and 205 men wounded, and not a single man missing. To put it in another way, this division with its fondness for figures as the real test of military prowess, had captured nearly six Germans for every casualty of its own. This was certainly waging thrifty and profitable war.

In the matter of traffic, too, the 33rd with characteristic self-reliance proceeded to look after itself. General Bell, who had a pungent common sense, knew his men when he set them to paddling their own canoe. When congestion on the Béthincourt road, assigned to both the 33rd and the 80th Divisions, prompted the thought of making a road of his own, he did not take up the question with Corps, which, as this was not in the original plan, might ask the views of Army on the suggestion. A young engineer might be sent out to make an investigation. He might consider the danger of drawing fire, and other factors. Then he might return to Corps for further consultation. After this another young engineer might be sent out to superintend the construction. Before Corps knew anything about it, and in the time that procrastinating counsel might have occupied, the Illinois men, who did not need anyone to show them how to build a road while they had spades and elbow-grease, had one completed right over the Mort Homme.

With its transport moving in good order and with its objectives taken, the 33rd might say, in the language which it had learned in training at the British front, "We've finished our job, and we're feeling quite comfortable, thank you." Except to put in a brigade to relieve the 80th and join up with the 4th Division--which was no small exception to the brigade--the 33rd had nothing further to do until, on the strength of the way it had carried out its mission of the 26th, it was ordered to cross the Meuse on October 8th in order to stop some of the flanking fire from the other bank--which belongs to another chapter.