Our Greatest Battle (The Meuse-Argonne)

by Frederick Palmer

Provident General Duncan saved his exhausted men from a part of the strain by skillful front-line reliefs on alternate nights. As the All-Americas might not go into rest as a division, he established a rest camp of his own, where exhausted, slightly gassed, wounded, and sick men had clean clothing, baths, and plenty of hot food, which rehabilitated them into "effectives"; and this enabled him to keep the 82nd in line until the night of October 31st, when the exhaustion of its memorable service in the Aire trough was to rob it of the thrill of pursuing the enemy to the Meuse, which the now rested 77th and 80th, taking its place, were to know. It had taken 900 prisoners, and paid for its success with 6,764 casualties.

So much for the left flank. We have bidden farewell to the Aire valley, whose trough and gap were now behind us; but we were not to be through with the Meuse until the day of the armistice. I approach no part of our fighting in France with a greater sense of incapability than the battle east of the Meuse—a separate battle, so influential in the fortunes of the main battle, which has never received its share of credit. Here every feature of the main battle was repeated in a confined arena which recalled to me the assaults on Port Arthur. I have already described the early operations of the 29th and 33rd in driving the wedge, which we hoped would relieve our Third Corps from long-range flanking fire to which it could not respond; and how they had been checked in the quixotic mission of an immediate conquest of the Borne de Cornouiller, or Hill 378.

As we know, the Borne, about three miles from the Meuse, was the supreme height of the eastern valley wall. Southward in the direction of the attack it sloped down into the steep-walled ravine of the Vaux de Mille Mais, whose eastern end gave into a series of ridges rising to the summit of Hill 370, protecting the Grande Montagne Wood in front as it protected 378 in flank by the Grande Montagne Wood and the famous Molleville farm. Thence an encircling ridge turning southward toward the Verdun forts formed the rim of a bowl. Had the German Army, as planned, withdrawn to the Meuse line, these hills would have been to their defense what the hills of Verdun were to the French defense in the battle of 1916.

Once the heights were taken, except for a series of detached hills, the way was open to the plain of the Woëvre and to Germany. Back of them and on their reverse slopes the Germans had built barracks for their men, and assembled their material for the great Verdun offensive. On the crests and the near slopes they had built concrete pill-boxes at critical points, and arranged a system of defense in the Verdun days, when they had learned by experience the tactical value of every square rod of ground. The approach from the bottom of the bowl—which is a rough description—to the rim was covered by many smaller interlocking and wooded hills and ridges cut by ravines. There was no ravine, it seemed, no part of this pit which was not visible to observers from some one of the heights. The operation of the French Corps, under which our divisions operated, must be fan-shaped, sweeping up the walls of the bowl, as a wedge at any given point would have meant annihilation. The approach to the bowl for our troops was along a road through a valley, which was as warranted in receiving its name as any Death Valley in the war. On the French side of the old trench line this ran through an area of villages in utter ruin from the bombardments of the Verdun battle, then through Samogneux and more ruins, woods, and fields of shell-craters into the valley of the bowl itself.

For five or six miles, then, stretched an area of desolation without any billeting places where troops could rest, except a few rat-infested and odorous, moist dugouts and cellars, roofed by the débris of villages. The young soldier who was going under fire for the first time, as he marched forward past that grayish, mottled, hideous landscape, might see the physical results of war upon earth, trees, and houses. When he came into Death Valley, he was to know its effects upon men. For two or three miles the road was always under shell-fire. By day visible to the enemy's observers, by night his gunners could be sure that guns registered upon it, if they fired into the darkness, would find a target on its congested reaches. It was inadequate to the traffic of the divisions engaged. Troops marching into battle must run its deadly gamut before they could deploy. It was the neck of the fan-shaped funnel of the battle-line. Transport was halted by shell-torn cars and motor-trucks and dead horses until they were removed, and by fresh craters from large calibers until they were refilled. There was no rest for the engineers; all the branches which were not ordinarily in the front line knew what it was to be under fire.

The Illinois men of the 33rd, on the left, after they had crossed the river and reached the slopes of the Borne de Cornouiller on the 9th, could move no farther on their front until the rim of the bowl was taken on their right. They stood off counter-attacks, and continued nagging the enemy until their relief on October 21st, forty-three days after they had gone into line on the left bank of the Meuse, and twenty-six days since, in the attack of September 26th, they had taken Forges Wood in their brilliant swinging maneuver which had been followed by their skillful bridging and crossing of the river. Now the division was to go to the muddy and active Saint-Mihiel sector for a "rest," relieving the 79th, which had had its "rest" and was to return for a part in the last stages of the battle. Even the much traveled, enduring, industrious, and self-reliant infantry of the 33rd had not had such a varied experience as the artillery brigade, which I may mention as a further illustration of how our units were moved here and there. It had been attached in turn to the 89th Division, the 1st Division, the Ninth French Corps, the 91st Division, the 32nd Division, the Army artillery, and finally to the 89th Division for the drive of November 1st, without ever once having served with its own division.

While the 33rd had been maintaining its ground, under orders to attempt no advance, in the east of the Meuse battle, the Blue and Grey 29th, its regiments intermixed at times with French regiments, had been forcing the action among the ravines and woods of the Molleville farm region against the same kind of offensive tactics that the Germans were using in the Loges Wood, and for an equally important object in relation to the plan of our operations as a whole. All parts of its front line and its support positions were being continually gassed. The frequent shifting of its units in relation to the French, in an effort to find some system of making progress up the walls of the rim, were additional vexation in trying to keep organization in hand over such difficult ground, under such persistent and varied fire against the veteran Prussians and Wurtembergers, who were quick to make the most of every opening offered them.

A branch of the Death Valley road, the Crépion road, runs up the eastern slope of the bowl. The point where it passes over the rim was most vital. From a rounded ridge on both sides of the road for a stretch between woods you look down upon the village of Crépion in the foreground and receding slopes in the distance. This point gained might flank the Etraye Wood positions, the Grande Montagne, and eventually Hill 378, the Borne de Cornouiller itself.

Commanding the southern side of the road and approaches to the summit was Ormont Wood, which rose to the crest of a very high hill, 360, only eighteen feet lower than the Borne, which was defended by pill-boxes. On the other side of the road were the Reine and Chênes woods. Beyond these was the Belleu Wood, on the same side of the road. Belleu and Ormont were key points. Belleu was to have as bad as name as Belleau Wood in the Château-Thierry operations.