Our Greatest Battle (The Meuse-Argonne)

by Frederick Palmer

It should have been no surprise, after the commotion due to the "side-slipping," double reliefs, and counter-marching, that the enemy knew that an attack was coming. Only if he had lost all tactical sense would he have failed to foresee its nature. He was ready with all his galleries of guns, and with his machine-guns regrouped to meet the emergency, when the wave of the 5th, including troops which had been up two nights in making a relief, being relieved, and taking over again, began the attack, under insufficient artillery support, in all the ardor of their first charge in the great battle.

Our barrage had not silenced the machine-gun nests, which began firing immediately. The enemy's ample artillery shelled our echelons in support, causing losses and a certain amount of inevitable confusion, as they were forced to take cover and deploy. It also laid down a barrage in front of our first wave; but the Aces passed through the swath of the bursts in steady progress up the bare slopes under increasing machine-gun fire, and reached the crests of Hills 260 and 271. There they were exposed to all the guns of the galleries, and to machine-gun fire from the direction of Bantheville in front, from Romagne on the left, and the Pultière and Rappes woods on the right. To pass over the crest and down the slopes into the valley beyond was literally to open their arms to receive the bullets and shells. What use was it for the 5th's batteries to face around due east from the line of attack toward the enemy batteries behind the Borne de Cornouiller, which were out of their reach?

The Pultière, the southern of the two woods, was about half the size of the Rappes, which was a mile long and separated from it by a narrow open space. The ground was uneven, sloping upward to hills which made the defense of their depths the easier. Our exploiting force sent into the Pultière to protect the flank of the main advance had not been strong enough for its purpose. After passing through flanking fire from the direction of Cunel, it was checked in the woods by the machine-guns concealed in the thickets, which also gave cover for machine-guns firing not only into the flank but into the right rear of the main advance. The next step was to take the Pultière by a concentrated attack during the afternoon, which drove forward until we had dug in face to face with the remaining machine-gunners in an irregularity of line which was always the result of determined units fighting machine-gun nests in a forest. The Aces who had won this much, their fighting blood fully aroused, proceeded to carry out their mission the next day, the 15th, of further relieving the flank of the advance on the hills, which was being sorely punished as it held to its gains under storms of shells.

Now imperishable valor was to lead to a tragedy of misunderstanding. On through the northern edge of Pultière Wood, across the open space between the two woods in face of the machine-gun fire from the edge of the Rappes Wood, then through the dense growth of the Rappes, infiltrating around machine-gun nests, and springing upon their gunners in surprise, again charging them full tilt in front, passing by many which were "playing possum," these Aces of American infantrymen, numbers thinning from death and wounds, but having no thought except to "get there," kept on until a handful of survivors reached the northern edge of the Rappes. This was their destination. They had gone where they were told to go. They dug in among the tree roots in the inky darkness, without the remotest idea of falling back, as they waited for support to come.

Now on the morning of that day, the 15th—after casualties had been streaming back all night under shell-fire from the bare hills which were being resolutely held with rapidly diminishing numbers,—it was found that the total remaining effectives of three regiments were only eleven hundred men, a hundred more than one battalion. Having asked the Corps for reserves, the division commander had attacked for the Rappes Wood as we have seen. The reports that came in to Division Headquarters from the morning's effort showed that we were making little progress in the wood, and were having very hard fighting still in the Pultière. The brigade commander ordered another attack on Rappes for the afternoon. This the division commander countermanded. In view of lack of support on his flank, the continuing drain of casualties and the situation of the division as a whole, he felt warranted in indicating that any units which might have made an entry into Rappes withdraw to the Pultière.

The next morning patrols which reached the men who were in the northern edge of Rappes passed on the word that they were to fall back. The gallant little band, surrounded by German snipers, had not been able to send back any message. Weren't they of the 5th? Hadn't they been told to "go through" the wood? Was it not the regulation in the 5th to obey orders? Withdraw! Very well; this was orders, too. From their fox-holes where, so far at least, they had held their own in a sniping contest with the enemy, they retraced their steps over the ground they had won past the bodies of their dead comrades. Before Division Headquarters knew of their success, the evacuation of Rappes was completed.

The night of the 16th the total rifle strength of the division was reported as 3,316, or a little more than one-fourth of normal. On the 17th Major-General Hanson E. Ely took command of the 5th. He was of the school of the 1st, long in France; a blue-eyed man of massive physique, who met all situations smilingly and with a firm jaw. The Pultière Wood was definitely mopped up during the day.

The brigade which had been in the 3rd Division's sector and suffered the most casualties and exhaustion was relieved. At least the 5th, weakened as it was by a battle in which the Aces fought as if they were the whole pack of cards, must hold the Pultière, and Hills 260 and 271. On the night of the 16th-17th the divisional engineers did a remarkable piece of work, even for engineers. They brought up under shell-fire and gas, and laid under shell- and machine-gun fire, two thousand yards of double wire to protect the tired infantry, which was busily digging in, against counter-attacks.

By this time, of course, the prospect of taking Grand Carré farm by the converging movement seemed out of the question. The farm was more than a mile beyond Bantheville, which was nearly a mile beyond the southern edge of the Rappes Wood. But when the 32nd reported progress in the Bantheville Wood on the 18th, and its patrols had seen no one in Bantheville, the 5th was sent to the attack again. Its patrols, which reached the edge of the town, found it well populated with machine-gunners, who might have only recently arrived. As for the Rappes Wood, all the cunning and daring we could exert in infiltration could take us only four hundred yards into its depths, where the Germans had been forewarned to preparedness by their previous experience.

On the 19th the 5th held fast under the welter of shell-fire from the heights and across the Meuse, while General Ely straightened out his organization, and applied remedies for a better liaison between the artillery and the infantry. On the 20th, the idea of "pushing" still dominant, under a heavy barrage the 5th concentrated all its available numbers of exhausted men in a hastily formed plan for another attempt for the Rappes Wood. It made some two hundred yards' progress against the sprays of bullets ripping through the thickets. The 5th was "expended" in vitality and numbers after these grueling six days; but it was not to give up while the Germans were in the Rappes Wood. The Aces made swift work of its taking on the next day. Their artillery and that of the 3rd on their left gave the men a good rolling barrage. The enemy artillery replied in a storm immediately; but the Aces, assisted by the men of the 3rd Division attacking from their side, drove through the shell-fire and all the machine-gun nests with what one of the men called a "four of a kind" sweep. At 5 P.M. the reports said that the wood was not only occupied but "riveted." At 6 P.M. the enemy answered this success with a counter-attack, which the 5th's artillery met, in three minutes after it had started, with a barrage which was its undoing. Having consolidated Rappes and avenged the pioneers who had first traversed it, the 5th was now relieved by the 90th, and sent to corps reserve. The exposure had brought on much sickness, which increased the gaps due to casualties. Absorbing three thousand replacements, General Ely, reflecting in his personality the spirit of his men, was now to prepare them for their brilliant part in the drive of November 1st.