Of high importance among the things that America did to help bring about decision between the battle lines was her share in the final agreement upon unified control of the associated armies in France. It was the voice of the United States Government through its representation in the Supreme War Council that carried the day for this measure and led to the appointment in March, 1918, of Marshal Foch as Generalissimo of the Allied and Associated Armies, an action which military authorities are agreed should have been taken long before and which, when finally brought about, was fruitful of the best results.
The aim of the War Department, as carried out by General Pershing, Commander in Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces, was to make the American Army in France an integral force, able to take the offensive and to carry on its own operations, and with that end in view he shaped its training and planned for its use at the front after its arrival in France. While he offered and furnished whatever troops Marshal Foch desired for use at any part of the battle line, General Pershing refused to distribute all his forces, insisted upon building them up as they became ready for the front into a distinctive American Army—at the signing of the armistice the First, Second and Third American Armies had been thus created—and by the time the American forces had begun to make themselves felt at the front he had substituted American methods of training, finding them better adapted to his men than the European, and in his last battle, the decisive action in the Meuse-Argonne region, his staff work was all American.
The plan of training carried out, except in the later months when the demand for troops at the front was immediate and urgent, allowed each division after its arrival in France one month for instruction in small units, a second month of experience by battalions in the more quiet trench sectors and a third month of training as complete divisions. When the great German offensive began in Picardy in March, 1918, General Pershing had four divisions ready for the front and offered to Marshal Foch whatever America had in men or materials that he could use. None of the Allied commanders believed that men so recently from civilian life could be used effectively in battle and it was only General Pershing’s knowledge of the character of his men, his insistent faith that they would make good under any trial of their mettle and his willingness to pledge his honor for their behavior under fire that induced Marshal Foch to accept his offer.
Brilliantly did these men justify their commander’s faith in them in this and in all the later battles in which they took part. In all, 1,390,000 were in action against the enemy. Less than two years before they had been clerks, farmers, brokers, tailors, authors, lawyers, teachers, small shop keepers, dishwashers, newspaper men, artists, waiters, barbers, laborers, with no thought of ever being soldiers. Their education, thoughts, environment, whole life, had been aloof from military affairs. They had been trained at high speed, in the shortest possible time, four or five months, and sometimes less, having taken the place of the year or more formerly thought necessary. But it was American troops that stopped the enemy at Chateau-Thierry and at Belleau Wood in June, when the Germans were making a determined drive for Paris and had reached their nearest approach to the French capital. They fought the enemy’s best guard troops, drove them back, took many prisoners and held the captured positions. Because of their valor and success the Wood of Belleau will be known hereafter and to history as “the Wood of the American Marines,” although other American troops fought with the Marines in that brilliant action. In the pushing back of the Marne salient in July, into which General Pershing, with absolute faith in the dependability of his men, threw all of his troops who had had any sort of training, American soldiers shared the place of honor at the front of the advance with seasoned French troops. Through two weeks of stubborn fighting the French and the Americans advanced shoulder to shoulder and steadily drove the enemy, who until that time had been just as steadily advancing, back to the Vesle and completed the object of reducing the salient.
Early in August the First American Army was organized under General Pershing’s personal command and took charge of a distinct American sector which stretched at first from Port sur Seille to a point opposite Verdun and was afterwards extended across the Meuse to the Argonne Forest. For the operation planned against the formidable enemy forces in front of him General Pershing assembled and molded together troops and material, all the elements of a great modern army, transporting the 600,000 troops mostly by night. The battle of St. Mihiel, for which he had thus prepared, began on September 12th, and this first offensive of the American First Army was a signal success. The Germans were driven steadily backward, with more than twice the losses of our own troops and the loss of much war material, and the American lines were established in a position to threaten Metz.
Two American divisions operating with the British forces at the end of September and early in October held the place of honor in the offensive that smashed the Hindenburg line, which had been considered impregnable, at the village of St. Vendhuile. In the face of the fiercest artillery and machine gun fire these troops, supported by the British, broke through, held on and carried forward the advance, capturing many prisoners. Two other divisions, assisting the French at Rheims in October, one of them under fire for the first time, conquered complicated defense works, repulsed heavy counter attacks, swept back the enemy’s persistent defense, took positions the Germans had held since 1914 and drove them behind the Aisne river.
The battle of St. Mihiel was a prelude to the Meuse-Argonne offensive and was undertaken in order to free the American right flank from danger. Its success enabled General Pershing to begin preparations at once for the famous movement that, more than any other single factor, brought the war to its sudden end. No military forces had ever before tackled the Argonne Forest. French officers did not believe it could be taken. With the exception of St. Mihiel, the German front line, from Switzerland to a point a little east of Rheims, was still intact. The purpose of the American offensive was to cut the enemy’s lines of communication by the railroads passing through Mézières and Sedan and thus strangle his armies. The attack began on September 26 and continued through three phases until the signing of the armistice. Twenty-one American divisions were engaged in it, of which two had never before been under fire and three others had barely been in touch with the front, but of these their commander said that they quickly became as good as the best. Eight of the divisions were returned to the front for second participation, after only a few days rest at the rear. In all, forty German divisions were used against the American advance, among them being many picked regiments, the best the German army contained, seasoned fighters who had been in the war from the start. They brought to the defense of their important stronghold an enormous accumulation of artillery and machine guns and the knowledge that they must repulse the offensive and save their communications or give up their entire purpose and confess themselves beaten. German troops did no more desperate and determined fighting in the war than in this engagement.
Mobile Kitchen Back of the Front Lines
