Читать книгу: «And they thought we wouldn't fight», страница 21

"I am of the storm troop," he said.

"Storm troop?" replied the American sergeant, "do you know what we are? We are from Kansas. We are Cycloners."

Another German student of English among the prisoners was represented in the person of a pompous German major, who, in spite of being a captive, maintained all the dignity of his rank. He stood proudly erect and held his head high. He wore a disgusted look on his face, as though the surroundings were painful. His uniform was well pressed, his linen was clean, his boots were well polished, he was clean shaven. There was not a speck of dust upon him and he did not look like a man who had gone through the hell of battle that morning. The American sergeant asked him in German to place the contents of his pockets on the table.

"I understand English," he replied superciliously, with a strong accent, as he complied with the request. I noticed, however, that he neglected to divest himself of one certain thing that caught my interest. It was a leather thong that extended around his neck and disappeared between the first and second buttons of his tunic. Curiosity forced me to reach across the table and extract the hidden terminal of that thong. I found suspended on it the one thing in all the world that exactly fitted me and that I wanted. It was a one-eyed field glass. I thanked him.

He told me that he had once been an interne in a hospital in New York but happening to be in Germany at the outbreak of the war, he had immediately entered the army and had risen to the rank of a major in the Medical Corps. I was anxious for his opinion, obvious as it might have seemed.

"What do you think of the fighting capacity of the American soldier?" I asked him.

"I do not know," he replied in the accented but dignified tones of a superior who painfully finds himself in the hands of one considered inferior. "I have never seen him fight. He is persuasive – yes.

"I was in a dugout with forty German wounded in the cellar under the Beaurepaire Farm, when the terrible bombardment landed. I presume my gallant comrades defending the position died at their posts, because soon the barrage lifted and I walked across the cellar to the bottom of the stairs and looked up.

"There in the little patch of white light on the level of the ground above me, I saw the first American soldier I have seen in the war. But he did not impress me much as a soldier. I did not like his carriage or his bearing.

"He wore his helmet far back on his head. And he did not have his coat on. His collar was not buttoned; it was rolled back and his throat was bare. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. And he had a grenade in each hand.

"Just then he looked down the stairs and saw me – saw me standing there – saw me, a major – and he shouted roughly, 'Come out of there, you big Dutch B – d, or I'll spill a basketful of these on you.'"

All through that glorious day of the 18th, our lines swept forward victoriously. The First Division fought it out on the left, the Foreign Legion in the centre and the Second Division with the Marines pushed forward on the right. Village after village fell into our hands. We captured batteries of guns and thousands of prisoners.

On through the night the Allied assault continued. Our men fought without water or food. All road space behind the lines was devoted to the forwarding of reserves, artillery and munitions. By the morning of the 19th, we had so far penetrated the enemy's lines that we had crossed the road running southward from Soissons to Château-Thierry, thereby disrupting the enemy's communications between his newly established base and the peak of his salient. Thus exposed to an enveloping movement that might have surrounded large numbers, there was nothing left for the Germans to do but to withdraw.

The Allied army commander, who directed the Americans on that glorious day, was General Joseph Mangin. His opinion of the immortal part played on that day by those two American divisions may be seen in the following order which he caused to be published:

Officers, Noncommissioned Officers, and Soldiers of the American Army:

Shoulder to shoulder with your French comrades, you threw yourselves into the counter-offensive begun on July 18th. You ran to it as if going to a feast. Your magnificent dash upset and surprised the enemy, and your indomitable tenacity stopped counter attacks by his fresh divisions. You have shown yourselves to be worthy sons of your great country and have gained the admiration of your brothers in arms.

Ninety-one cannon, 7,200 prisoners, immense booty, and ten kilometres of reconquered territory are your share of the trophies of this victory. Besides this, you have acquired a feeling of your superiority over the barbarian enemy against whom the children of liberty are fighting. To attack him is to vanquish him.

American comrades, I am grateful to you for the blood you generously spilled on the soil of my country. I am proud of having commanded you during such splendid days and to have fought with you for the deliverance of the world.

The Germans began backing off the Marne. From that day on, their movement to date has continued backward. It began July 18th. Two American Divisions played glorious parts in the crisis. It was their day. It was America's day. It was the turn of the tide.

CHAPTER XX
THE DAWN OF VICTORY

The waited hour had come. The forced retreat of the German hordes had begun. Hard on their heels, the American lines started their northward push, backing the Boche off the Marne.

On the morning of July 21st I rode into Château-Thierry with the first American soldiers to enter the town. The Germans had evacuated hurriedly. Château-Thierry was reoccupied jointly by our forces and those of the French.

Here was the grave of German hopes. Insolent, imperialistic longings for the great prize, Paris, ended here. The dream of the Kultur conquest of the world had become a nightmare of horrible realisation that America was in the war. Pompously flaunted strategy crumpled at historic Château-Thierry.

That day of the occupation, the wrecked city was comparatively quiet. Only an occasional German shell – a final parting spite shell – whined disconsolately overhead and landed in a cloud of dust and débris in some vacant ruin that had once been a home.

For seven long weeks the enemy had been in occupation of that part of the city on the north bank of the river. Now the streets were littered with débris. Although the walls of most of the buildings seemed to be in good shape, the scene was one of utter devastation.

The Germans had built barricades across the streets – particularly the streets that led down to the river – because it was those streets that were swept with the terrific fire of American machine guns. At the intersections of those streets the Germans under cover of night had taken up the cobblestones and built parapets to protect them from the hail of lead.

Wrecked furniture was hip deep on the Rue Carnot. Along the north bank of the river on the Quai de la Poterne and the Promenade de la Levée, the invader had left his characteristic mark. Shop after shop had been looted of its contents and the fronts of the pretty sidewalk cafés along this business thoroughfare had been reduced to shells of their former selves.

Not a single living being was in sight as we marched in. Some of the old townsfolk and some young children had remained but they were still under cover. Among these French people who had lived for seven weeks through the hell of battle that had raged about the town, was Madame de Prey, who was eighty-seven years old. To her, home meant more than life. She had spent the time in her cellar, caring for German wounded.

The town had been systematically pillaged. The German soldiers had looted from the shops much material which they had made up into packages to be mailed back to home folks in the Fatherland. The church, strangely enough, was picked out as a depository for their larcenies. Nothing from the robes of the priests down to the copper faucet of a water pipe had escaped their greed.

The advancing Americans did not linger in the town – save for small squads of engineers that busied themselves with the removal of the street obstructions and the supply organisations that perfected communication for the advancing lines. These Americans were Yankees all – they comprised the 26th U. S. Division, representing the National Guard of New England.

Our lines kept pushing to the north. The Germans continued their withdrawal and the Allied necessity was to keep contact with them. This, the Yankee Division succeeded in doing. The first obstacle encountered to the north of Château-Thierry was the stand that the Germans made at the town of Epieds.

On July 23rd, our infantry had proceeded up a ravine that paralleled the road into Epieds. German machine guns placed on the hills about the village, swept them with a terrible fire. Our men succeeded in reaching the village, but the Germans responded with such a terrific downpour of shell that our weakened ranks were forced to withdraw and the Germans re-entered the town.

On the following day we renewed the attack with the advantage of positions which we had won during the night in the Bois de Trugny and the Bois de Châtelet. We advanced from three sides and forced the Germans to evacuate. Trugny, the small village on the edge of the woods, was the scene of more bloody fighting which resulted in our favour.

Further north of Epieds, the Germans having entrenched themselves along the roadway, had fortified the same with a number of machine guns which commanded the flat terrain in such a way as to make a frontal attack by infantry waves most costly. The security of the Germans in this position received a severe shock when ten light automobiles, each one mounting one or two machine guns, started up the road toward the enemy, firing as they sped. It was something new. The Germans wanted to surrender, but the speed of the cars obviated such a possibility. So the enemy fled before our gasoline cavalry.

The Germans were withdrawing across the river Ourcq, whose valley is parallel to that of the Marne and just to the north. The enemy's intentions of making a stand here were frustrated by violent attacks, which succeeded in carrying our forces into positions on the north side of the Ourcq. These engagements straightened out the Allied line from the Ourcq on the west to Fère-en-Tardenois on the east, which had been taken the same day by French and American troops.

By this time the German withdrawal was becoming speedier. Such strong pressure was maintained by our men against the enemy's rear guards that hundreds of tons of German ammunition had to be abandoned and fell into our hands. Still the retreat bore no evidences of a rout.

The enemy retired in orderly fashion. He bitterly contested every foot of ground he was forced to give. The American troops engaged in those actions had to fight hard for every advance. The German backed out of the Marne salient as a Western "bad man" would back out of a saloon with an automatic pistol in each hand.

Those charges that our men made across the muddy flats of the Ourcq deserve a place in the martial history of America. They faced a veritable hell of machine gun fire. They went through barrages of shrapnel and high explosive shell. They invaded small forests that the enemy had flooded with poison gas. No specific objectives were assigned. The principal order was "Up and at 'em" and this was reinforced by every man's determination to keep the enemy on the run now that they had been started.

Even the enemy's advantage of high positions north of the river failed to hold back the men from New York, from Iowa, Alabama, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana, who had relieved the hard fighting Yankees. These new American organisations went up against fresh German divisions that had been left behind with orders to hold at all cost. But nothing the enemy could do could prevent our crossing of the Ourcq.

On July 30th the fighting had become most intense in character. The fact that the town of Sergy was captured, lost and recaptured nine times within twenty-four hours, is some criterion of the bitterness of the struggle. This performance of our men can be better understood when it is stated that the enemy opposing them there consisted of two fresh divisions of the Kaiser's finest – his Prussian Guard.

After that engagement with our forces, the Fourth Prussian Guard Division went into an enforced retirement. When our men captured Sergy the last time, they did so in sufficient strength to withhold it against repeated fierce counter attacks by a Bavarian Guard division that had replaced the wearied Prussians.

But before the crack Guard Division was withdrawn from the line, it had suffered terrible losses at our hands. Several prisoners captured said that their company had gone into the fight one hundred and fifty strong and only seven had survived. That seven were captured by our men in hand to hand fighting.

While our engineer forces repaired the roads and constructed bridges in the wake of our advancing lines, the enemy brought to that part of the front new squadrons of air fighters which were sent over our lines for the purpose of observation and interference with communications. They continually bombed our supply depots and ammunition dumps.

After the crossing of the Ourcq the American advance reached the next German line of resistance, which rested on two terminal strongholds. One was in the Forêt de Nesles and the other was in the Bois de Meunière.

The fighting about these two strong points was particularly fierce. In the Bois de Meunière and around the town of Cièrges, the German resistance was most determined. About three hundred Jaegers held Hill 200, which was located in the centre of Cièrges Forest, just to the south of the village of the same name. They were well provided with machine guns and ammunition. They were under explicit orders to hold and they did.

Our men finally captured the position at the point of the bayonet. Most of its defenders fought to the death. The capture of the hill was the signal for a renewal of our attacks against the seemingly impregnable Meunière woods. Six times our advancing waves reached the German positions in the southern edge of the woods and six times we were driven back.

There were some American Indians in the ranks of our units attacking there – there were lumber jacks and farmer boys and bookkeepers, and they made heroic rushes against terrific barriers of hidden machine guns. But after a day of gallant fighting they had been unable to progress.

Our efforts had by no means been exhausted. The following night our artillery concentrated on the southern end of the woods and literally turned it into an inferno with high explosive shells. Early in the morning we moved to the attack again. Two of the Kaiser's most reputable divisions, the 200th Jaegers and the 216th Reserve, occupied the wood. The fighting in the wood was fierce and bloody, but it was more to the liking of our men than the rushes across fire-swept fields. Our men went to work with the bayonet. And for six hours they literally carved their way through four kilometres of the forest. Before ten o'clock the next morning, our lines lay to the north of the woods.

In consolidating the gains in the woods, our men surrounded in a small clearing some three hundred of the enemy who refused to surrender. American squads advanced with the bayonet from all sides. The Germans were fighting for their lives. Only three remained to accept the ignominy of capture.

Our forward progress continued and by August 4th the Germans were withdrawing across the Vesle River. The immediate objective that presented itself to the Americans was the important German supply depot at Fismes. It was in and around Fismes that some of the bloodiest fighting in the second battle of the Marne took place. The capture of Fismes was the crowning achievement of one American division that so distinguished itself as to be made the subject of a special report to the French General Headquarters by the French army in which the Americans fought. In part, the report read:

"On Aug. 4th the infantry combats were localized with terrible fury. The outskirts of Fismes were solidly held by the Germans, where their advance groups were difficult to take. The Americans stormed them and reduced them with light mortars and thirty-sevens. They succeeded, though not without loss, and at the end of the day, thanks to this slow but sure tenacity, they were within one kilometre of Fismes and masters of Villes, Savoye and Chezelle Farm. All night long rains hindered their movements and rendered their following day's task more arduous. On their right the French had, by similar stages, conquered a series of woods and swamps of Meunière Woods, to the east of St. Gilles, and were on the plateau of Bonne Maison Farm. To the left another American unit had been able to advance upon the Vesle to the east of St. Thiébault.

"On Aug. 5th the artillery prepared for the attack on Fismes by a bombardment, well regulated, and the final assault was launched. The Americans penetrated into the village and then began the mean task of clearing the last point of resistance. That evening this task was almost completed. We held all the northern part of the village as far as Rheims road, and patrols were sent into the northern end of the village. Some even succeeded in crossing the Vesle, but were satisfied with making a reconnaissance, as the Germans still occupied the right bank of the river in great strength. All that was left to be accomplished was to complete the mopping up of Fismes and the strengthening of our positions to withstand an enemy counter attack.

"Such was the advance of one American division, which pushed the enemy forward from Roncheres on July 30th a distance of eighteen kilometres and crowned its successful advance with the capture of Fismes on Aug. 5th."

The German line on the Vesle river fell shortly after the capture of Fismes. The enemy was forced to fall back to his next natural line of defence on the Aisne. Between the Vesle and the Aisne, the Americans assisted the French in the application of such persistent pressure that the enemy's stubborn resistance was overcome and in many places he was forced to withdraw before he had time to destroy his depots of supply.

On August 9th, General Degoutte, commanding the Sixth French Army, issued the following order:

"Before the great offensive of July 18th, the American troops, forming part of the 6th French Army, distinguished themselves by clearing the 'Brigade de Marine' Woods and the village of Vaux of the enemy and arresting his offensive on the Marne and at Fossoy.

"Since then they have taken the most glorious part in the second battle of the Marne, rivalling the French troops in ardour and valour.

"During twenty days of constant fighting they have freed numerous French villages and made, across a difficult country, an advance of forty kilometres, which has brought them to the Vesle.

"Their glorious marches are marked by names which will shine in future in the military history of the United States: Torcy, Belleau, Plateau d'Etrepilly, Epieds, Le Charmel, l'Ourcq, Seringeset Nesles, Sergy, La Vesle and Fismes.

"These young divisions, who saw fire for the first time, have shown themselves worthy of the old war traditions of the regular army. They have had the same burning desire to fight the Boche, the same discipline which sees that the order given by their commander is always executed, whatever the difficulties to be overcome and the sacrifices to be suffered.

"The magnificent results obtained are due to the energy and the skill of the commanders, to the bravery of the soldiers.

"I am proud to have commanded such troops."

Through the month of August and up to the first days of September, the Americans participated in the important operations to the north of Soissons, where on August 29th they played a big part in the capture of the Juvigny Plateau.

In this fighting, which was marked by the desperate resistance of the enemy, the Americans were incorporated in the 10th French Army under the command of General Mangin. Violent counter attacks by German shock divisions failed to stem the persistent advances of our forces.

A large hill to the north of Juvigny constituted a key and supporting position for the enemy. In spite of the large number of machine guns concealed on its slopes, the Americans succeeded in establishing a line between the hill and the town. At the same time the American line extended itself around the other side of the hill. With the consummation of this enveloping movement, the hill was taken by assault.

On Labor Day, September 2nd, after bitterly engaging four German divisions for five days, the Americans advanced their lines to Terny-Sorny and the road running between Soissons and St. Quentin. This achievement, which was accomplished by driving the Germans back a depth of four miles on a two mile front, gave our forces a good position on the important plateau running to the north of the Aisne.

Our observation stations now commanded a view across the valley toward the famous Chemin des Dames which at one time had been a part of the Hindenburg line. Before the invasion of the German hordes, France possessed no fairer countryside than the valley of the Aisne. But the Germans, retreating, left behind them only wreckage and ashes and ruin. The valley spread out before our lines was scarred with the shattered remains of what had once been peaceful farming communities. To the northwest there could be seen the spires above the city of Laon.

The American units which took part in this bitter fighting that had continued without a day's cessation since July 18th, were mentioned specifically in an order issued on August 27th by General Pershing. The order read:

"It fills me with pride to record in general orders a tribute to the service achievements of the First and Third Corps, comprising the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Twenty-sixth, Twenty-eighth, Thirty-second and Forty-second Divisions of the American Expeditionary Forces.

"You came to the battlefield at a crucial hour for the Allied cause. For almost four years the most formidable army the world has yet seen had pressed its invasion of France and stood threatening its capital. At no time has that army been more powerful and menacing than when, on July 15th, it struck again to destroy in one great battle the brave men opposed to it and to enforce its brutal will upon the world and civilisation.

"Three days later in conjunction with our Allies you counter-attacked. The Allied armies gained a brilliant victory that marks the turning point of the war. You did more than to give the Allies the support to which, as a nation, our faith was pledged. You proved that our altruism, our pacific spirit, and our sense of justice have not blunted our virility or our courage.

"You have shown that American initiative and energy are as fit for the tasks of war as for the pursuits of peace. You have justly won unstinted praise from our Allies and the eternal gratitude of our countrymen.

"We have paid for our successes with the lives of many of our brave comrades. We shall cherish their memory always and claim for our history and literature their bravery, achievement and sacrifice.

"This order will be read to all organisations at the first assembly formations following its receipt.

"Pershing."

August 10th marked a milestone in the military effort of the United States. On that day the organisation was completed of the First American Field Army. I have tried to show in this record how we began the organisation of our forces overseas. Our first troops to reach France were associated in small units with the French. Soon our regiments began to reach the front under French Division Commanders. Then with the formation of American divisions, we went into the line under French corps commanders. Later still, American corps operated under French Army Commanders. Finally, our forces augmented by additional divisions and corps were organised into the First American Field Army.

Through these various stages of development, our forces had grown until on August 10th they had reached the stage where they became practically as independent an organisation as the British armies under Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig and the French armies under General Petain. From now on the American Army was to be on a par with the French Army and the British Army, all three of them under the sole direction of the Allied Generalissimo, Marshal Ferdinand Foch.

The personnel of this, the greatest single army that ever fought beneath the Stars and Stripes, is reproduced in the appendix. It might not be amiss to point out that an American division numbers thirty thousand men and that an American corps consists of six divisions and auxiliary troops, such as air squadrons, tank sections, and heavy artillery, which bring the strength of an American army corps to between 225,000 and 250,000 men. By the 1st of September, the United States of America had five such army corps in the field, martialling a strength of about one and one-half million bayonets. General Pershing was in command of this group of armies which comprised the First American Field Army.

It was from these forces that General Pershing selected the strong units which he personally commanded in the first major operation of the First American Field Army as an independent unit in France. That operation was the beginning of the Pershing push toward the Rhine – it was the Battle of St. Mihiel.

It was a great achievement. It signalised the full development of our forces from small emergency units that had reached the front less than a year before, to the now powerful group of armies, fighting under their own flag, their own generals, and their own staffs.

The important material results of the Battle of St. Mihiel are most susceptible to civilian as well as military comprehension. The St. Mihiel salient had long constituted a pet threat of the enemy. The Germans called it a dagger pointed at the heart of eastern France. For three years the enemy occupying it had successfully resisted all efforts of the Allies to oust them.

The salient was shaped like a triangle. The apex of the triangle – the point of the dagger – thrusting southward, rested on the town of St. Mihiel, on the river Meuse. The western flank of the triangle extended northward from St. Mihiel to points beyond Verdun. The eastern flank of the triangle extended in a northeasterly direction toward Pont-à-Mousson. It was the strongest position held by the Germans in Lorraine – if not on the entire front.

The geographical formation of the salient was an invitation for the application of a pincers operation. The point of leverage of the opposing jaws of the pincers was, most naturally, the apex of the triangle at St. Mihiel.

One claw of the pincers – a claw some eight miles thick, bit into the east side of the salient near Pont-à-Mousson on the west bank of the Moselle River. The other claw of the pincers was about eight miles thick and it bit into the western flank of the salient in the vicinity of the little town of Haudiomont, on the heights of the Meuse and just a little distance to the east of the Meuse River.

The distance across that part of the salient through which the pincer's claws were biting was about thirty miles, and the area which would be included in the bite would be almost a hundred and seventy-five square miles. This, indeed, was a major operation.

The battle began at one o'clock on the morning of September 12th, when the concentrated ordnance of the heaviest American artillery in France opened a preparatory fire of unprecedented intensity.

At five o'clock in the dim dawn of that September morning, our infantry waves leaped from their trenches and moved forward to the assault. The claw of the pincers on the eastern flank of the salient began to bite in.

One hour later the claw of the pincers on the western flank of the salient began to move forward.

On the east, our men went forward on the run over ground that we had looked upon with envious eyes from the day that the first American troops reached the front. Before noon we had taken the villages of Lahayville, St. Baussant, Vilcey and the Bois de Mortmare and we were still advancing. By nightfall, our lines were still on the move beyond Essey and we were holding the important town of Thiaucourt and claimed Villers sur Penny for our own.

The seemingly impregnable fortress of Mont Sec had been surrounded, our tanks had cleared the way through Pannes, we had taken Nonsard and the towns of Woinville and Buxières had fallen into our hands.

On the west side of the salient the day had gone equally well for us. The western claw of the pincers had pushed due east through the towns of Spada and Lavigneville. Our men had swept on in the night through Chaillon, we had taken St. Remy and had cleared the Forêt de Montagne. By midnight their advanced patrols had reached the western part of the town of Vigneulles. In the meantime, our forces on the eastern side of the salient were pushing westward toward this same town of Vigneulles. At three o'clock in the morning the forces from the east were occupying the eastern part of the town. The pincers had closed; the St. Mihiel salient had been pinched off.

Our forces actually met at nine o'clock on the morning of September 13th. The junction was made at the town of Heudicourt to the south of Vigneulles. We had pocketed all of the German forces to the south of that town. Our centre had moved forward at nine o'clock the night before and occupied St. Mihiel on the heels of the retreating Germans. But the withdrawal was too late. Large numbers of them found themselves completely surrounded in the forests between St. Mihiel on the south and Heudicourt on the north.