Our Greatest Battle (The Meuse-Argonne)

by Frederick Palmer

The infantry continued its valiant and persistent see-sawing. On the 29th they made a big swing on the right, and on the left took a dépôt de machines, or roundhouse, and the treacherous ravine south of Binarville in which it was situated, by hard and audacious fighting. On the 30th the whole line again made progress, against machine-gunners who had cunningly prepared paths to give them visibility for a greater distance, and to draw the attackers into the line of their fire. They charged down the slopes of the Charlevaux ravine and its irregular branches, across the streams and swamps at their bottoms, and up the slopes on the other side—all this through woods and thickets, of course. The next day an even deeper advance was made over very irregular ground, while the right in triumphant ardor pressed forward, ahead of the left and center, across the Fontaine-aux-Charmes ravine and its branches and their streams until it was past the heights of the Chêne Tondu. As the Chêne Tondu was not yet wholly in the possession of the division on the right, the gallant victors deserved something better in their weariness than to be forced to retire by overwhelming fire in flank and rear from the commanding heights. The night of October 1st the "Liberty" men, after six days in which they had steadily advanced for a depth of six miles, held the line from the Chêne Tondu across the Forest to a point north of Binarville, its supporting flanks on either edge of the Forest in a deadlock.

There was forest and still more forest ahead of the 77th. After it had conquered the Argonne, it might have a chance to take the Bourgogne Wood beyond on the way to the Lille-Metz railway. After this experience the New Yorkers ought not to be afraid to go into Central Park after dark when they returned home.

They may have thought that the 28th on their right was not keeping up to program, and the 28th may have thought that they were not; but neither had the advantage that I had of seeing the other in action during those terrible days. Astride the Aire river, having the trough as its very own, the 28th put a heart of iron into its first impact, and tempered it to steel in its succeeding attacks. The "scalloping" process which was its mission looked just as simple on a flat map as the swing toward the Meuse of the 33rd; but then, everything looked simple on the map, and everything for all the divisions might have been as simple as it looked if it had not been for the enemy. He was always interfering with our staff plans. If the Aire's course had been straight, and the valley walls had come down symmetrically to the river bottom, the 28th would have had straight open fighting, which is a satisfaction to brave men whatever the cost. A direct frontal attack was as out of the question for the Pennsylvanians as it was mandatory for the 77th. They must exhibit suppleness and cunning, or bull-dog grit was of no service.

In full realization that the true defense of the Forest was on its flanks, the enemy developed strong resistance in front of the 28th on the first day. The Perrières Hill, a bastion in the first line of defense, honeycombed with machine-gun emplacements, held up the attack on the left as it swept its fire over the trench system on either side, covering the steep approaches for its capture which were studded with shell-craters and festooned with tangles of wire. The enemy also set store by the ruins of the town of Varennes in the valley, which were to become so familiar to all the soldiers who ever passed along the Aire road. At Varennes the road crosses the river in sight of the surrounding congeries of hills. Under cover of the ruins and the river banks the Germans had both seventy-sevens and machine-guns, which, well-placed as they were, failed of their purpose. It was now evident that the enemy would strive to hold every height on either side of the Aire with the object of grinding our attacks between the molars of two powerful jaws.

For the German map plan was as simple as ours. It invited our initiative into the open throat of the valley and into blind alleys between the heights blazing with fire. The 28th was to interfere with the German plan just as the Germans were to interfere with the American. Plans did not seem to count. Nothing counted except tactical resource and courage in the face of shells which came screaming and bullets whistling from crests in sight and crests out of sight. Woods fighting was only an incident of the problem for the 28th, which took La Forge on the edge of Montblainville, only to find that the machine-guns in the Bouzon Wood on the west wall had an open field for their fire from three quarters of the compass.

The disadvantage of the 28th's sector from the start was that there was no screen of foliage to cover a deployment before a charge. On the night of the 26th the battalion which had been held up by the Perrières Hill was marched round, to carry out the plan of "scalloping," for an attack on the Chêne Tondu, which was an escarpment projecting out of the Forest into the valley of the Aire north of Montblainville, like a wood-covered promontory into a strait. It commanded the whole river valley and the Forest edge on its front. Its slopes were irregular, with every irregularity seeming to favor the defender, who at every point looked down-hill upon the attacker. Behind it was another escarpment, even stronger, the Taille l'Abbé. Between the two the enemy had ample wooded space for moving his reserves and artillery free from observation. Should the Chêne Tondu be lost, the enemy had only to withdraw with punishing rearguard fire to this second bastion. On the reverse slope of the Taille l'Abbé were hospitals, comfortable officers' quarters, and dugouts, while the artillery in position there could shoot over the Chêne Tondu with plunging fire upon its approaches. Along the heights of the Forest edge and other heights to the rear, other guns, as many as the Germans could spare for the sector, might find perfect camouflage and security.

There were also the heights of the east bank of the Aire to consider. With the river winding past their feet they interlocked across the valley. Thus advancing down the valley meant advancing against heights in front as well as on the flanks. Stretching back to the whale-back itself beyond the heights of the east bank were other heights, even more commanding, whose reverse slopes offered the same kind of inviting cover for long-range artillery as the reverse slopes on the west bank. If a height on one bank were not taken at the same time as the corresponding height on the other, this meant murderous exposure for the men in the attack that succeeded. Therefore, thrifty and fruitful success required a uniformity of movement by the three divisions of the First Corps in conquering the heights of both banks of the Aire and of the Forest's edge.

For the 28th the taking of the Chêne Tondu was the keystone of the advance. Until it had this height, the 28th could not support the movement of the 77th in the Forest or of the 35th on the east bank of the Aire. The Germans had concentrated their immediate reserves on the Chêne Tondu, and their guns on its supporting heights.

If the German staff had planned the woods in front of the main slopes of Chêne Tondu, they could hardly have been in a better location for affording invisibility to machine-gun nests against a visible foe. To have taken the Chêne Tondu by one fell rush, as our staff desired, might have been possible through sheer weight of man-power by the mustering of all the division's infantry against one sector of its front, supported by the artillery of two or three divisions with unlimited ammunition. The artillery of the 28th was not up. It was having the same trouble about roads as the artillery of other divisions. When the officers of the 28th scouted the avenues of approach in order to maneuver their infantry units economically, they found none which would not require that we charge across open and rising ground against an enemy whose strength our men were to learn by "feeling it" in an attack without adequate shields into concentrations of shell- and machine-gun fire which became the more powerful the more ground they gained.

Availing themselves of every possible opening where the enemy's fire was relatively weak, they forced their way into the village of Apremont in the valley. As soon as this success was known to him, the enemy made up for any neglect in prevision by bringing guns and machine-guns into position to command the village. Wherever the Pennsylvanians made a thrust, if a savage reception were not primed awaiting them, one was soon arranged. Their maneuvers were further hampered by the bends of an unfordable river, which a direct attack for any great depth would have to cross and recross under the interlocking fire. Troops on the narrow river bottom were visible as flies on a wall. Every hour German resistance was strengthening in the Aire sector as in other vital sectors along the front.