A willing horse was still to be driven for another day. The 79th was to be sent against the slopes of the whale-back. Morning revealed the enemy's artillery in still greater force; and there was mockery for the men as they breasted it in the sight of a German observation balloon, lazily floating above the whale-back and directing the guns in firing on any parties who might have found ravines or slopes out of sight of observers from the heights. All day the left strove for gains in fitful attacks, and gained some three hundred yards. The right, in a determination that shell-fire could not balk, reached the edge of the Ogons Wood. That was something; courage's final defiance in its exhaustion, before the thin line, which had looked into the recesses where the hidden machine-guns opened upon them, withdrew to their former position. The 79th was "expended," to use the military phrase; and the meaning of that was in the hollow eyes of pasty faces and in dragging footsteps. On the 30th its part was that of the other divisions from the Meuse to the Forest, hugging the pits it had dug under shell-fire. In the afternoon it was relieved by the veteran 3rd Division.
Having brought the account of the battle down to the standstill which closed the first stage, we may now turn our attention to the American divisions which were engaged with Allied armies in other decisive attacks of this crucial period.
XIII
OVER THE HINDENBURG LINE
New York and the South on the British front—Up the Somme valley in the wake of the Australians—The Saint-Quentin Canal tunnel—Another ambitious plan—The simplicity of success in the attack of the 30th Division—The Pickett's charge of the 27th—A mêlée on the open slopes—In which the Australians take a hand—The German hinge at Bony holds—Australia carries on—The western front in movement—The British again in Le Cateau—Our part in the advance to Valenciennes.
The Scotch thrift of Sir Douglas Haig, in face of the demand for our divisions in our own sector and at other points along the line, had been able to retain two of the ten divisions which had been trained in the British sector: the 27th, or "Orions," National Guard of New York under command of Major-General John F. O'Ryan; and the 30th, or "Old Hickory," National Guard of the Southern mountain states, under command of Major-General Edward M. Lewis. These two, forming our Second Corps under Major-General George W. Read, were to have a spectacular part in the attack of September 29th against the Hindenburg line on the thirty-mile front between Cambrai and Saint-Quentin, which was to be the next of the thrusts in the development of the general offensive movement which decided the war.
MAP NO. 6
LINES REACHED BY GERMAN AND ALLIED OFFENSIVES 1918.
Second Corps Headquarters had been from the time of its organization in the British area. Neither division had served anywhere else than with the British. They had been isolated from the association of the American army in a world of their own within the British world. It was well that they should be there; that if we were to have divisions detached from our army some should be contributing their style of English to that spoken by English, Scotch, and Irish, by Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and South Africans.