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| The Marines at Chateau Thierry Chateau Thierry! The name of that French town on the Marne lives forever in the memory of Americans. For there the United States Marines, whom Berlin had affected to pity as "untrained amateurs," stopped the rush of the famous Prussian Guards, and proved that the "amateurs" could shoot straight and did not know the meaning of the word retreat. For five days the German masses had been pressing back the French divisions, unbroken but very weary - from the Aisne to the Vesle, to the Ourcq, and finally to the Marne. They had taken Chateau Thierry and the crest over which the Paris road runs. To the west they had pushed out toward Meaux and Paris. To the east they had crossed the Marne at Dormans. That was on Memorial Day, 1918. Driving in at full speed of its cars, the Seventh Machine Gun Battalion had helped to hold the Chateau Thierry bridgehead. On the morning of June 2 the Second Division, and with it the Marine Brigade, was in line across the Paris road down the Marne. Though one of its regiments had been in France nearly a year the Brigade had seen no hard fighting. It had been seventy-two hours on the road in motor trucks, coming from reserve back of Montdidier. Late that afternoon they were attacked by their sights as if on the Quantico range, the Marines withered the German columns with rifle fire. What proved to be the last drive direct for Paris had been stopped. It was not yet the high tide of the German war machine, for after six weeks of beating against a stone wall it was to try one more big attack, up the Marne toward Epernay, in the hope of getting around what it could not break through. Meanwhile the "untrained amateurs" were to prove that they could not only hold but also could strikeback. The Germans had filled Belleau Wood, to the west of Chateau Thierry, with nests of machine guns. Until they were cleared out the battle of Chateau Thierry could not be considered won. On June 6 the Marines went in again to clear them out, with the villages of Rocy and Couresches as the objectives. Companies that went in 250 strong dwindled to fifty and sixty, with a sergeant in command. Lieut. ROBERTSTON had only twenty men left of his platoon when he entered Bouresches at 9:45 p.m. It was fighting from tree to tree, in underbrush so thick that a machine gun fifty yards away could not be seen until it swept the ranks with its fire. Save by long artillery fire that would wipe out the timber the only way was with the bayonet, with perhaps but one man reaching the nest to kill the last of its defenders and turn the gun on other German positions. That is the way the Marines and their companions of the Third Regular Brigade did it. The task was not done in a day or a week. Not until July 6 was Belleau Wood finally cleared. But what the Yanks took they held. And in the memory of their valor France has decreed that Belleau Wood, whose taking completed the battle of Chateau Thierry, shall be known forever as the "Wood of the United States Marines." Meanwhile the Third Division had been holding the railroad north of the bend of theMarne between the Surmelin mouth and Mezy. "A single regiment," says Gen. PERSHING, "wrote one of the most brilliant pages in our military annals. Our men, firing in three directions, met attacks with counter attacks at critical points and threw two German divisions into complete confusion,capturing 600 prisoners." The First, Second and Twenty-sixth U.S. Divisions had joined with the French in thecounter offensive of July 18 toward Soissons, and by reaching Berzy-le-Sec, Tignyand Torcy compelled the Germans to begin a retreat and captured over 7,000 prisonersand 100 guns. The Third Division, pushing north from the Marne, had taken Mont St.Pere, Charteves and Jaulgonne. On July 24 the Rainbow Division relieved the Twenty-sixth,fought its way through the Foret de Fere, and on July 27 had reached the Heightsof the Ourcq with the Third and Fourth Divisions. On July 29 the Thirty-second (LesTerribles) Division relieved the Third, and with the Rainbow pushed on to Ciergesand Sergy. The Twenty-eighth and Seventy-seventh Divisions then took up the pursuitof the enemy to the Vesle and the reduction of the Marne salient ended with the captureof Fismes on August 6. The Barrage at St. Mihiel St. Mihiel, picturesquely situated in the Meuse bluffs, has given its name tothe first all-American defensive, where the Yanks fought wholly under their own directionand command. Hitherto, for the best of reasons, they had fought by divisions, andoften by brigades and even regiments, under French and British direction. ThroughAugust the divisions which had stayed the German rush at the Marne, and smashed itback to the Vesle, were gathering in the Toul region for the smashing in of the St.Mihiel salient, which for four years had irritated all students of the war maps.The Germans had held it ever since September, 1914. Its hills made a natural fortress,improved through four years, and it not only cut the Verdun-Toul-Nancy railway linebut was a flank threat to any offensive toward Lorraine. Gen. PERSHING's plan was to swing in a line of divisions like a great barn door fromthe southern side, with Pont-a-Mousson over on the Moselle to the east as the hinge.From the outer edge to the hinge the divisions were the First, Forty-second, Eighty-ninth,Second, Fifth, Ninetieth and Eighty-second, about 150,000 men, with six more divisionsin reserve. From the north end of the western side the Twenty-sixth and a Frenchdivision were to swing in like the other leaf of the door. Vigneulles was where the door edges were to meet. Any Germans down in the nose ofthe salient would be sheared off. As the operation involved the concentration ofabout 600,000 men, and as it rained heavily on September 11, the Germans apparentlybelieved that the artillery preparation started at 1:30 the next morning would notbe followed by the general assault. That, however, was not PERSHING's way, and theinfantry started on regular schedule at 5:30 a.m. Through the drizzling rain the Yanks went forward all along the line, finding anastonishing light resistance. "It's like taking candy from kids," said the veterans of the Marne. The Germans waved white handkerchiefs from the mouths of dugouts before they putup their hands. Berlin pretended the Germans had "retired according to plan"from ground no longer worth holding. The explanation ill-accorded with the conductof German gunners two miles behind their front, with no fresh shell holes about them,who had not even taken the camouflage off their guns to fire into our advancing infantry,nor with the 16,000 prisoners and 443 guns captured. Something like panic seems tohave stricken the German command there. Certainly the die hard spirit was not inthese Germans, save for a few machine gunners. So, pushing on through the night,the advancing party of the Twenty-sixth Division reached Vigneulles at dawn of September13, just a little before the first patrols of the First, and, with the forts of Verdunoff to their left, looked out across the pain of the Woevre. The St. Mihiel salient was wiped out, the Yanks had given another dramatic answerto the German scoff, "brave, but pitiably untrained," and were really "onthe road to Berlin." Yonder it led, the old Roman road into Germany down theValley of the Moselle, but grimly guarded as yet by the great forts of Metz. The day after the St. Mihiel salient was taken Gen. PERSHING began his dispositionsfor the Argonne campaign. Concurrently with this greatest American offensive detachedYank divisions were fighting elsewhere. The Twenty-seventh and Thirtieth were withthe Australians when they smashed the Hindenburg line on September 29 to October1, in the St. Quentin region. The Second and Thirty-sixth were with the French inthe Champagne. On October 2 to 9 the Second broke the German line before Rheims,capturing Blanc Mont and St. Etienne, and forcing the enemy out of positions theyhad held since September, 1914. The Thirty-sixth, for the first time under fire,heat off heavy German attacks and took up the pursuit of the enemy in their retreatbehind the Aisne. Toward the end of October the Thirty-seventh and Ninety-first Divisionswere sent to help the French in Belgium. Advancing from Ypres, the Thirty-seventhon October 31 broke the German line and November 3 forced the passage of the Escautriver, while the Ninety-first took the Spitalsk Bosschen Wood and reached Audenardein Belgium The Argonne was not a battle. It was a campaign, in which through forty-two daysof almost continuous fighting the American army pushed through the most natural defensibleregion held by the Germans in France and broke the best of their two great linesof supply. When the Yanks had seized the Mezieres-Sedan railway ganglion the Germanarmies in Picardy and Flanders had left for supply under the hammering of the Britishand French or for retreat from it only the railways passing by way of Liege, withoutlet eastward half barred by the southward projection of Dutch Limburg. The factthat it took forty-two days, with the use of twenty-one divisions, approximately500,000 men, to advance the twenty-five miles from Verdun to Sedan is explained bythe nature of the Argonne forest. It is a region of gulched hills, woods and stonewallfarms and villages, through which the Meuse breaks northward in gorges which menwho know have compared to the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas in Colorado. The main American line was from the Meuse near Verdun westward to Vienne-le-Chateau,on a front of about twenty miles. There were also two American divisions operatingeast of the Meuse with the French. It had been assembled while laymen here at homewere expecting some sort of an attempt to reduce the giant fortress of Metz. Butto leave the Argonne to attack Metz would be to leave the foe in our rear, whileto take the Argonne would permit advance by way of Longwy and Briey, thus "turning"Metz. That was, in fact, PERSHING's next move, already begun when Germany surrendered. To describe even briefly the fighting that forced that surrender would require avolume. Suffice here that the offensive began on the morning of September 26, andin its first stage gained the line defined by Montfaucon, Malancourt and Rieville,across the Meuse. The second big push began October 4, and by October 10 had clearedthe forest and was reaching the more open country beyond. Among its achievementswere the breaking of the "Kriemhilde" line, where the enemy had boastedthat the Americans would be held up indefinitely, by the Fifth Corps, on October14. With well rested divisions, the final advance began on November 1, and two days laterthe enemy was evidently broken. On October 3 the Third Corps scored an advance oftwelve miles to Halles. "Our Third Corps crossed the Meuse on the 5th," says Gen. PERSHING's report,"and the other corps, in full confidence that they day was theirs, eagerly clearedthe way of machine guns as they swept northward. On the 6th a division of the Firstcorps reached the Meuse opposite Sedan, twenty-five miles from our line of departure.The strategical goal which was our highest hope was gained. We had cut the enemy'smain line of communication, and nothing but surrender or an armistice could savehis army from complete disaster." The road was opened to Berlin, and the German surrender followed on November 11. During the great Argonne drive occurred the heroic episode of the "Lost Battalion."Major WHITTLESEY's battalion of the Seventy-seventh Division, pushing eagerly inpursuit of the enemy, was completely surrounded, and for several days was supposedto have been captured. It was, in fact, besieged in a little valley among these woodedhills. For five days it was without food except what the men had carried with themin their haversacks, and almost without water, and under incessant fire. Two-thirdsof its numbers were killed or disabled. A German officer sent in a wounded prisonerunder a flag of truce with a note imploring the Americans to surrender. Major WHITTLESEYshouted back "Go to hell!" amid cheers of his men. Finally, after nearlya week, it was relieved by an advance of the Forty-second which drove back the enemy.The Seventy-seventh was a melting pot division, largely recruited from the East Sideof New York city, and mainly composed of recent immigrants from Russia and Italy,mostly sweat shop and other factory workers. Gen. PERSHING's report says: "Our Third Corps crossed the Meuse on November5." Nothing more is said of one of the most picturesque and plucky feats ofthe war because it related rather to a future movement than to the strategic goalof the Argonne campaign. The main American advance had been west of the Meuse, swinging on a pivot in theWoevre northeast of Verdun. Unless the seizure of the Sedan-Mezieres railway centerbrought Berlin to its knees the next advance would have been, says Gen. PERSHING,"Between the Meuse and the Moselle in the direction of Longwy." That purposewas behind the order that came to the Third Corps on November 4 to cross the Meuse.The order was to send over one brigade first, and if it failed to send another, andthen others if necessary. Theoretically the Yanks could cross anywhere for five miles.Practically, the Germans were so strongly intrenched that they were limited to apoint just north of Brieulles, where the Germans had thought trenches unnecessarybecause between the river and the parallel canal lay a kilometer of mud flat. Theydid not believe the Yanks would dare the triple exposure of the river, the mud flatand the canal. They did not know the Yanks. For at the word in went the swimmerswith ropes and on rafts and canvas boats. Despite German rifle fire some got across, and then the engineers began to throwover pontoons and a footbridge. Next came the wallow through the mud flat, whichhad been reached by the first brigade as night fell. Then came the crossing of thecanal, with its sheer sides, and the Germans almost on the other edge. Again the swimmers plunged in, throwing up ropes with grappling hooks, and thus pullingthemselves up the canal wall. Of course their comrades back on the bank of departurewere keeping up a steady rifle and machine gun fire to prevent the Germans from shootingdown all the men in the water and on the mud flat. During the night the engineersgot two bridges across, and the morning found so many more Yanks over that the Germansappeared to think it useless to resist strongly men who could thus brave their fire,swim two streams and cross a swamp between and then attack them without pausing fora moment. |
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