Two of the divisions which had been in line on the first day of the Meuse-Argonne battle were in line on the last. Two others which had helped break the old trench system on September 26th, the 37th and the 91st, were to see the finish far from our army family, on the plains of Belgium. Isolated in an odd Flemish world of level fields broken by canals, the two were attached to different French corps in that Allied force of British and French and Belgians under the Belgian King, and under the direct command of General Degoutte, which had disengaged Ypres, recovered Ostend, Bruges, Roulers, and Courtrai, when on October 31st our men joined in that tide of victory which was soon to flow into Brussels itself. In three days they made eight miles against irregular rearguard action. In taking the low ridge commanding the Scheldt, they were under a heavy artillery reaction of the Germans in protecting the retreat across the river. The Ohioans on November 2nd, in face of the concentrations of gun-fire, were able to slip small detachments across on bridges improvised from tree-trunks and timbers taken from shattered houses, and eventually, that night, to pass over several battalions on a temporary footbridge; the 91st and the French divisions were unsuccessful in reaching the other bank except by this one bridge. The Pacific Coast men, with their usual intrepidity, were planning to swim the river, but after three days of continued advance, which included the capture of the large town of Audenarde, they and the Ohioans were given a rest by the corps commands. On the 10th they were put in line again, but they did not overtake the line pursuing the retreating enemy before his capitulation.
Some American units, besides the 27th and 30th Divisions with the British, had been isolated from the first from the American family. American hospitals in base towns on both the British and French fronts were an evidence, from the days of our neutrality, of that work of war which knows no national allegiance. Volunteer ambulance sections, maintaining the traditions of the American Field Service, continued to the end to serve with French divisions; and indeed, many of the former volunteers who had preferred to prepare for commissions in the French army might be come upon unexpectedly in the horizon blue uniform. Engineer troops for which our Allies had made an early request might be buried in obscure parts of the front, to come to light only in the shadow of an emergency which, as at Cambrai and in the German March offensive, turned engineer troops into combatants; or again, as our own demands grew, to return to our own fold. Air squadrons, as well as individual aviators, served in valiant anonymity on Allied fronts, in many cases never seeing the American front, which yet wanted for aviation. So wide was the dispersion of Americans throughout France that it is safe to say that hardly a single commune of the country has gone without sight of the soldier from overseas. In due time the far-flung legions would all have come home to an integral army; but the problem of keeping in touch with units which believed themselves lost to the sight of their comrades was not a simple one, and yet a problem that must be faced. How was the motor park, isolated in French barracks at Epinal, or the forestry unit in the Jura or the Pyrenees, to be assured that somewhere in the inner circles of hierarchy its faithful service was being noted and appreciated?
Most isolated of all, though they received due meed of honor from the French with whom they served, were certain colored regiments. Recruited from various National Guard organizations in northern States, they had arrived in a training area in France after a usual period of service as labor troops in the S. O. S., and were formed into a provisional 93rd Division, which was not, however, to be assembled. In the spring the regiments were assigned to various French divisions for trench service, at the request of the French staff, which had developed long experience with colored troops in many African campaigns. For this service the Americans were equipped throughout with French mustard-colored khaki uniforms, French rifles, packs, gas masks, and helmets, which still further accentuated their isolation. The varying fortunes of trench warfare in the Argonne and about Saint-Mihiel seasoned their experience for a due part in the repulse of the last German offensive, and in the offensive begun by General Gouraud's army west of the Argonne, at the same time with our attack to the east. Withdrawn with their divisions after a few days of advance which counted them as "expended," the regiments were sent to recuperate in the Vosges, whence they started on the short march to the Rhine after the armistice.
We know how, in framing the armistice terms, as one after another strong demand was included, an apprehension developed in certain Allied quarters lest the Germans, with such a large army still in being, might become desperate and continue the war. When one read the terms, which surrendered the German navy and placed us in command of the Rhine bridgeheads, he knew how deep the two-edged sword had cut, and that the Allies had power in their hands to force complete submission to their will. It was a skillful and wise peace, bringing an end to the bloodshed and the agony.
Only those who considered it to their honor or their profit could have wished to fight all the way to Berlin. The thought in the mind of every soldier was: "I still live; I shall not have to go under fire again;" in the mind of every relative of a soldier: "He is still alive." Through all the celebrations to come, it was a thought dominant in subconsciousness, if not publicly expressed. To some of our own newcomers, perhaps, who had not yet been in action, there was human disappointment that they had arrived too late; though our veterans and the war-weary veterans of our Allies might tell them that they were fortunate in what they had escaped. Perhaps, too, certain of our officers, who had worked toward the vision of the spring campaign, when our recuperated divisions would be supported by the enormous quantity of munitions from home, and all our branches would be fully equipped, may have felt that they had been robbed of professional fulfillment. Not until spring would we have been able to undertake another offensive against determined resistance. On November 11th we had only two fresh divisions in reserve; we were depending upon green replacements, and our hospitals were full. If we had come late into the war, we had given the full measure of our strength in the final stage.
The forming of the new Third Army of Occupation under Major-General Joseph T. Dickman, drawn from our veteran divisions in a favorable position for the movement, and its long tour of police duty, is no more in the province of this book than the many journeys which the author made after the armistice: up and down the Rhine; into Brussels, to see the people welcome back their King; over the Ypres, the Somme, and the Verdun battlefields, as well as our own; along roads which had been for four years in sound of the guns, now silent; among our camps where our soldiers in the dreary, long, cold nights were impatiently marking time until their homegoing; through the Services of Supply, where I saw that vast machine we had built reversed, to the ports, where the tide of our soldiery was flowing outward instead of inward—the thought ever uppermost being that humanity might learn from this most monstrous example of war's folly how to avoid its repetition.