Our Greatest Battle (The Meuse-Argonne)

by Frederick Palmer

MAP NO. 11
DIVISIONS IN THE THIRD STAGE OF THE MEUSE-ARGONNE BATTLE, OCTOBER 31ST-NOVEMBER 11TH.

So it was with the 2nd Division, where I followed up the advance. With the seeming facility with which the easier hurdles are taken in a steeple-chase, the wave of the 2nd had swept over the fragmentary trenches of the Kriemhilde system beyond Sommerance, where the great attacks of the 1st and the 82nd had died down, and our line had been little changed by the general attack of October 14th, which had mastered the Kriemhilde in the center. There were occasional enemy shell-bursts in patches of woods and on obvious points, fired by German guns, halting in retreat or before withdrawal from their old positions, and occasional bullets cracked by from the left in the region of the Bourgogne forest; but all this seemed only the venomous and hopeless spite of a rearguard action that was breaking into a rout. Only at long intervals did you see a prone, still figure in khaki on the earth; and our wounded were not numerous. German prisoners were being rounded up from bushes and gullies, and in gray files they were crossing the fields to the rear, as the combings of a drive which was moving as fast this time as the pencilings on the map of high ambition. Admired by the Allies for our speed, we were showing it now in legs unlimbered and free of the chains that had encompassed us for over a month.

It had ceased to be a battle on the way to Bayonville-et-Chennery. It was a march, a joyous march of victory, more appealing than any city parade, you may be sure. Our guns and transport were coming along roads which were free of any except a rare vagrant shell-burst. Indeed, everything in the 2nd's sector was going according to schedule. It was good to be with the 2nd, as I had learned in June and July in the Château-Thierry operations. One stopped and watched for the figures ahead to appear in their mobile swiftness in open spaces, as they came out of woods and ravines. One knew by instinct that we were going over the heights and down the apron this time. The weather was with us, too. After the long period of chill rains and hardships, a kindly sunshine filtered through the leaden sky. There had been more thrilling days in the war, thrilling with triumph and apprehension for me: when I was in Brussels, before the German avalanche arrived; when I saw the British battle fleet go out to sea; when I saw the French driving the Germans back in the first battle of the Marne; when I saw the British and French in their retreat before the German offensives of 1918; when I saw our first contingent land in France. But the crowning day was the one which brought forth the confession of the German communiqué that we had broken the German line.

This is not saying, though the Fifth Corps in the center reached its objectives, except for a few hundred yards at some points, that everything in the schedule went without a hitch along the whole front. Our movement was fan-shaped, swinging toward the loop of the Meuse in its bend westward. The center of gravity, as I understood the plan, was to pass from the Fifth Corps to the First on the left, whose flank was on the Bourgogne forest, with an intricate tactical problem to solve in scalloping and flank maneuvers. Here we met severe resistance from the Germans, who were still inclined to hold their bastion. Though the 78th had pounded its old enemy, the Loges Wood, with shells of big calibers from heavy American and French batteries assigned to it, the Germans still clung to their machine-guns; and though the Bourgogne Wood was thoroughly gassed, it poured in a strong flanking fire, and even sent out one counter-attack. The 77th was checked by heavy casualties in its effort to storm Champigneulle. The 80th, also fresh and impetuously determined to let nothing stop it, found the Germans showing their old form in defending woods and hills, and had to repeat their attacks and repulse counter-attacks; for our left, which had the longest swing to make, was delayed, while our center, taking over the center of gravity as the result of its advance, had gone ahead for four and five miles.

The Rainbows of the 42nd, in reserve with the First Corps, were fractious. Weren't they in sight of the rainbow's end of their year in France? Let them in, and they would take it. Fine troops the 78th, 77th, and 80th, no doubt, thought the Rainbows, but the 42nd was the 42nd, and belonged to a class by itself for this kind of work. The three divisions of the First Corps were not offering iridescent travelers in the rear a holiday on the path they had blazed. They were about to enjoy it themselves.

The enemy was making his stand on the left to prevent our wholesale capture of prisoners, when he found that the combined movement of the French and American armies would put him into a trap; but the next day he was out of the Loges Wood and Champigneulle, and retreating through the Bourgogne forest. All three divisions took up the pursuit, to make up for lost time—and catch up with the procession. They were to show that they could move fast, too. On the 2nd they made four and five miles, and on the 3rd they kept up the same gait, which was a marvelous performance in deployment and contact and endurance.

The Fifth Corps in the center faced the final heights of the whale-back, the Barricourt crest. For its support it had an overwhelming concentration of artillery fire, which Summerall, the gunner, required in order to keep his word to "go through." Lejeune's race-horse 2nd surpassed its own record for speed, as we have seen. Not only did it take its own objectives, but it was called on to send support elements over to assist the left. It was glad to send support elements anywhere, if they filled a gap which the 1st might have filled.

The 89th, the other division of the Fifth Corps, was thrown head on against the Barricourt heights. Wright had been among his officers and men, making them feel that all the Mississippi valley was calling on them for all there was in them in this attack. They might have been gassed and mired in the Bantheville Wood, they might be tired; but their great day had come. They were "going through." The Stokes mortars kept up with the assault waves, even dragging wagons of ammunition with them; a brigade of artillery was following up the infantry two hours after the attack began. Prodigious effort had a road through the mire of Bantheville Wood by 10.30 in the morning, with all the divisional transport moving up. No less than those hard-shell veterans of the 2nd, the 89th went ahead from the start in the conviction that success was certain. Before that day was over they ran into nests of machine-guns which ordinarily ought to have repulsed the most gallant charge, but the waves of infantry, with supports fast on their heels, had tasted victory in its intoxicating depths, and they overcame every obstacle. That night the Barricourt ridge was ours; when the Germans stated that their line was broken, it meant that we had broken German resistance on the whale-back. The way was open to the Meuse, and Germans in front of the First Corps had better make the most of the darkness of the night of the 1st for retreat.

As the two divisions of the Fifth Corps, the 2nd and the 89th, in the pell-mell rush to get the final crest, which was of such decisive importance in the strategic plan, had become extended, the shorter advances required of them during the next two days, which included some stout, if uneven, resistance, by the Germans, allowed them time to get transport in order and bring up more artillery. Those old hounds of the 1st, with their mouths watering, were moving as close up to the front as their schedule would permit, and straining at the leash. The 89th, having had such a grueling time in going over the ridge, and such hard marching after the exhaustion of cleaning up Bantheville Wood, might be considered nominally expended, if not in fact. When the Fifth Corps gave an order that the 1st take over the 89th's place, General Wright objected. Take out his Kansans and Missourians! They were only getting their second wind. They were coming as strong as a flood on the Missouri. The order was revoked; a second one later was scotched by the same effective protest. Meanwhile the General was up at the front, urging on his tired men with the persuasive argument of the Corps threat. So the 89th was to remain in until the finish, while the 1st, licking its chops and panting, swinging this way and that, was begging: "Just give us one bite!"

Prospects were no better for the 32nd, in reserve with the Third Corps on the right. Everybody could not be in this battle; the 5th and the 90th were willing that the Arrows should study the ground they had won, but they might not participate in winning more. Ely's and Allen's men were preoccupied with that undertaking themselves, and too busy to look after tourist parties. Whereat the Arrows sharpened their points in impatience, as they pried forward, and tightened their bowstrings, ready for a flight if they could draw the bows which, if they had the chance, would show the divisions in front the character of veteran skill.