X
BY THE RIGHT FLANK
Two weeks of reconnaissance by the 33rd on the right—Surprising the enemy by charging through a swamp—Careful planning gives complete success by noon—Nothing more but build a road and wait—Two belts of woods in front of the 80th—The enemy must hold at the second belt—Which he does with enfilade artillery, gas, and a counter-attack from Brieulles—More artillery support necessary before the defenses of the town, beyond the belts, could be taken—The 4th does its first bit in workmanlike fashion—But cannot get beyond the foot of the whale-back without its stalled artillery—The Corps digs in as it can and waits.
By the right flank, left flank, and center! Every action, whether fought by a thousand or a million men, resolves itself into these simple elements of strategic control, which is as old as war. In our Meuse-Argonne drive the right and left flanks elbowed their way down the two river valleys to the conquest of the approaches on either side of the heights of the whale-back, which the center was attacking in front. To think in these terms is to think in Corps; and to think in Corps is to think in divisions.
On the right of Bullard's Third Corps in the trough of the Meuse was the 33rd Division, Illinois National Guard. It was the first American division to arrive on the Meuse-Argonne line, taking September 7th-9th from a French division the sector which our whole Third Corps was later to occupy. A single American division assigned to such a broad front of quiet trenches would not arouse the enemy's suspicions that we were planning a major offensive. On the contrary, it might be an excellent mask for our battle preparations.
Thus the 33rd had two weeks of actual trench occupation in which to familiarize itself with the enemy positions. These resourceful Illinois men, who had seen much and learned much in having already served with a British, an Australian, a French, and an American Corps, were just the kind to make the most of their advantage, being naturally of an inquiring mind and not timid, though shrewd, in their methods of inquiry. Before the attack, in making room for the other two divisions of the Corps in their stealthy approach, they were side-slipped to the right, where they faced the river bottoms of the Meuse. At their back was the scarred slope of the Mort Homme, and in their sight were the other famous hills of the Verdun battle.
The mission of the 33rd was as picturesque and appealing as its surroundings. As the hinge of the whole movement, on the pivot of the river bank, it was to swing round in a half circle until its front was secured on the Meuse, at a right angle to the German front line on the opposite bank. This was to be accomplished by noon, after which the 33rd had only to dig in and hold fast. My reference elsewhere to the difficulty of maneuvering troops even in face of no opposition particularly applies to this sweeping right wheel. There was the Forges brook, as well as the trench systems to cross. On the right of the line was the Forges Wood, and on the left was the Juré Wood, which gave cover for machine-guns, if they were not overcome, to play a flanking fire on the center. Forges Wood was the real problem. Its machine-gun nests were protected by formidable defenses where the Germans thought them necessary. At other points they depended upon morasses which they thought impassable; and they knew the river bottoms thoroughly as their avenue of advance in their repeated attacks for the mastery of the Mort Homme in the Verdun battle. However, the inquiring Illinois men made their own investigations most thoroughly, if covertly, without accepting the reputation of German thoroughness as a guarantee that there were no openings.
As a result they not only disagreed with the German view, but took counsel of their conviction in strategy which was to lull the enemy in his own conviction of his security and of their amateurishness. They had time to work out the plan by thorough instruction in every detail. In the first stage of the advance they had to descend a steep slope and cross the Forges brook. There they were to halt on a road on the other side of No Man's Land, to form up for the final act any units that had been delayed or become mixed. Being an accurate, card-index kind of division, the 33rd's records show that the road was reached in fifty-seven minutes, and that at the end of twenty minutes every man was in his place according to schedule.
With the left regiment swinging past the Forges Wood, this might have exposed its flank, if the action of the right had not been properly timed; for everything depended upon each unit carrying out its part in the team-work punctually. Charging up to their hips in slime and up to their necks in water, the Illinois men proved that the swamps were not impassable. They took duckboards from the trenches and threw them over the stretches of barbed wire which protected the Wood where the swamps did not. Just as the defenders of the Wood were turning their machine-guns on the targets on their flanks, the right regiment "jumped" them in front. This gave them an opportunity for to-the-death resistance by firing in two directions; but they were too confused in the shattering of all their preconceptions to make use of it in face of those mud-plastered Americans springing bolt into their midst. They yielded readily. The swinging left had put the Juré Wood behind it, and, with only broken elements of the enemy now in its path, the 33rd had its whole line on the bank at noon. The right hinge of the Army secure, the maneuver had been so beautifully made and it was such a complete success that it attracted less attention than if the division had been obliged to endure the very hard fighting which skill and foresight had prevented.
As the booty of its swift combing advance, the 33rd had taken 1,450 German prisoners, who wondered just what had happened to them and why, and seven 6-inch howitzers, two 110-millimeter guns, twenty pieces of field artillery, not to mention some trench mortars, fifty-seven machine-guns, a light railway, and a well-stocked engineer depot. The 33rd's own loss was 2 officers and 34 men killed, and 2 officers and 205 men wounded, and not a single man missing. To put it in another way, this division with its fondness for figures as the real test of military prowess, had captured nearly six Germans for every casualty of its own. This was certainly waging thrifty and profitable war.
In the matter of traffic, too, the 33rd with characteristic self-reliance proceeded to look after itself. General Bell, who had a pungent common sense, knew his men when he set them to paddling their own canoe. When congestion on the Béthincourt road, assigned to both the 33rd and the 80th Divisions, prompted the thought of making a road of his own, he did not take up the question with Corps, which, as this was not in the original plan, might ask the views of Army on the suggestion. A young engineer might be sent out to make an investigation. He might consider the danger of drawing fire, and other factors. Then he might return to Corps for further consultation. After this another young engineer might be sent out to superintend the construction. Before Corps knew anything about it, and in the time that procrastinating counsel might have occupied, the Illinois men, who did not need anyone to show them how to build a road while they had spades and elbow-grease, had one completed right over the Mort Homme.