Our Greatest Battle (The Meuse-Argonne)

by Frederick Palmer

The attack of the 30th Division on the right of the Corps line against the Hindenburg position, on the morning of September 29th, was a complete success—a clean drive through for two miles and a half to its objectives. If the division's flank was not exposed as the 27th's was, if it had relatively better ground to traverse, without the handicap of having to take its jumping-off place before it began its real advance, this in no wise detracts from the honor that these men of the Southern mountains, ninety-five per cent of whom were of Anglo-Saxon origin, did their forebears in fighting as a part of the British army. They won more Congressional Medals of Honor, the highest tribute our nation can pay any officer or man for gallantry in the field, than any other division. All that they did was in character with the best traditions of their grandfathers who had fought under Lee and Stonewall Jackson. They had named their division "Old Hickory" in honor of another Jackson who was a Southern hero; and hickory is hard, tough, and springy wood. Called "poor whites" by the heedless, they were rich in the qualities that count in battle. There were companies of them which were sixty per cent illiterate when they came to camp, which calls for thought on the part of the traveler in the "richest country in the world" who sees their faces at railroad stations or in their simple houses in the mountains.

Character and education, as we are not too often reminded, are not the same; and these men have character, which is sound in the warp and the woof, though it lacks frills and misses the motion pictures 'round the corner from the soda fountain. They were capable of education, too, not only in reading, writing, and arithmetic which they were taught in the schools established for them, but in military technique. What they learned they learned well. They did not think that any substitute "would do just as well" when it would not. If they were told to put out panels for the planes, they put them out, and in the way that they were told. Their discipline was in the devotion of the kind which kept the poorly fed, equipped, and clothed Southern armies resisting Northern power for four years, and the officers who led them were of a democracy which has its test in more than mere platitudes.

They believed in their officers, but maintained their attitude of self-respect, that individualism developed from their surroundings, which separated them by as wide a gulf from regiments drawn from the swarming streets of a great city as could well exist in a country speaking a common tongue. With their drawling voices and romantic views, and their lean figures and clear eyes, it seemed to me that they gave a certain atmosphere of simple knightliness even to the processes of modern war. Their conscientious attention to all the details of instructions which taken together make the whole of battle efficiency, their accuracy of thought as accurate as their shooting, the confident hunter's zest with which they went straight at their foe, were contributing factors of more importance than any good fortune in their swift and positively brilliant advance through the defenses of one of the strongest positions on the western front. With surprisingly small losses, no day's work of any division of the American army deserves more praise than the Hickory's, both because of their own character and of that of their task. They did not think that they had done much. Their admiration was all for the British veterans on their right who had adroitly managed a crossing of the canal on rafts and had kept pace with their own movement.

The story of the 27th on the left, for the very reason that it was not the kind of success which moves the pencilings on schedule time on the map in keeping with staff plans, was to exhibit those qualities of the courage of individuals and groups in distress against odds, of which we stand in awe as the supreme tribute to men as men in battle. The reports showed that all was going well at first. Under cover of foggy mist, which was most friendly in hiding the advance down the slope of both divisions, the 27th started off in the same admirable fashion as the 30th, following close behind its barrage. By noon not only was the 30th reported in Nauroy, beyond the canal, but troops of the 27th had been seen in Gouy and Le Catelet, practically one town, on the far side of the main ridge. Aviators later saw detachments of the Orions moving forward and Germans who were not convoys of prisoners moving in the opposite direction—a most suggestive spectacle. Divisional communications had been cut. The division staff could only wait on results, not knowing what orders to give. Such command as remained was with the leaders of the elements, their liaison broken, which were fighting their hearts out. There could be no more doubt of the 27th's capability than of the fearful situation in which it was placed. The New York National Guard had been known as among the best state troops, having received liberal support, while its commander was a permanent officer on the state's pay-roll, who gave all his time to the organization. On the Mexican border it had won high praise. Later, when the New Yorkers were given an integral division in our army in the war with Germany, both in their training at home and in France and then in their fighting in the Ypres salient, they enhanced their reputation.

When I went over the field of the action of the 27th, I was struck with amazement at the results expected of them, and with awe as I visualized their effort, which like Pickett's charge owes its place in history not to the wisdom of generals but to valor—and that the valor of intelligence. While the British were to advance on the right of the 30th, they were not to succeed in advancing on the left of the 27th, where the canal, emerging from the tunnel's northern end, bends to the west, against the direction of the attack, across the Macquincourt valley, whose wall opposite the tunnel entrance has ravines and hillocks for cover. This area, covered with big shell-craters, sometimes half-filled in by other shell-bursts, included sections of communication trenches, machine-gun emplacements, dugouts, snarls of barbed wire, all in a chaotic disorder which had no system to the casual glance, except that every square yard of it was suited to desperate resistance by skilful soldiers. The 27th's left was to sweep across this valley over the ridge, and then throw out forces of exploitation for protection of its flank in face of the well-intrenched unfordable canal and the high ground behind it; after the canal tunnel had been taken, other forces were to swing north, while the British Third Corps, which had not been sent in a frontal attack against the open canal positions—over ground infinitely more difficult than at the other end of the tunnel,—was, with the aid of this support, to "join up." It could hardly be said of that plan, as of many others for swinging open the double doors against trench systems, that it even looked well on paper; but it was the plan adopted after thorough consideration by practical soldiers.

The Germans, of course, had information that an offensive was in preparation on this front, and that it would include the ridge over the canal tunnel. With their reserves in the tunnel ready, they would wait on its development before sending them to the point where they would do the most service. Anticipating their prevision, our command gave instructions that as we reached the openings in the tunnel they were to be guarded, thus preventing the egress of the Germans except as prisoners from their great dugout, in the same manner that trench dugouts were breached in an attack. That this could not be done in face of the numbers of the enemy emerging after our first wave had passed is not a criticism of the men who fought all day to do it.

The "get there" spirit which animated all our divisions was supreme in the men of the 27th. As they descended the slope, after sweeping over the forward ridge, their figures distinct as the smoke-screen and the fog lifted, the German artillery sent a curtain of shell-fire, which kept pace with their progress, through the curtain protecting them. Machine-guns from the high ground across the open canal were turned on their flank with increasing fire; and their own tanks, on which they relied so largely for protection, were to suffer severe casualties from accurate enemy defense. Each infantry unit had no thought except to keep on going. Every survivor had his face set toward the goal. The forces assigned to secure the openings in the tunnel and to "mop up," straggling over the uneven ground and raked by machine-gun fire, could not advance against the stubborn resistance developed by the enemy emerging from his hiding-places after our barrage had lifted. On the right the men of the 27th, striving to keep up with the 30th, drove into the main trench system about the ruined village of Bony, on the crest in front of the tunnel, and for all the accumulated effort of the enemy to throw them back from this vital hinge of his resistance, maintained their footing in a struggle that lasted all day. Passing over the northern end of the ridge, on the left, a battalion of the first wave, regardless of fire, reached the Le Catelet-Gouy villages, their final objective. It was their movement that the aeroplane observers had seen going in the opposite direction from German reserves coming into action. That battalion had kept faith with the plan which required swift action to make the most of the initiative gained, before the enemy could mobilize for defense after the shock of the attack.

Naturally it had soon been apparent to the German command that there was no advance by the British Third Corps on the 27th's left up to the canal. Obviously this was the opening for reserves to frustrate the offensive. The German soldiers gradually losing morale as a whole were now to show their old form in one of those flashes of desperate counter-attack and resistance which was worthy of their regulation at its fiercest. It had always been characteristic of them that they fought best when they were winning; when the advantage was theirs. These veterans swarming out of the openings of the tunnel and up the Macquincourt valley on our exposed flank had their blood up. This was their Hindenburg line. They had been told that it was unassailable, and that any attack against it would break into confusion which would be their prey, an opportunity which was compensation for their retreats of the last month, arousing afresh their professional zeal in applying, in a field of a kind with which they were as familiar as prairie dogs with their warrens, all their skill in tactics of cunning infiltration under the support of their machine-guns. They were as old hounds who had been having hard hunting of late with little success, and whose appetites were whetted by the sight of a quarry.

The report that we had an enemy division surrounded was probably founded on the observation of the counter-attacking parties of Germans observed between the battalion in Gouy and our main force. Wholly enveloped, the groups of this gallant unit—a Pickett's charge which had kept going until the remnants were swallowed up in the enemy's forces—could only surrender, when they saw gray uniforms on all sides, or, dodging from cover to cover, try to win their way back to their comrades. Other units, emerging into zones swept by unseen fire, sought any protection they could find. Others still tried to advance. "Mopping up" parties had to resist being "mopped up" themselves. The battle became a mêlée in front of the Hindenburg line; a free-for-all, in and out of burrows and craters; their general must trust his men to fight in the spirit in which he had trained them; and thus they did fight. Plunging machine-gun fire and hand-grenades sought out the wounded in folds of the ground and pits, while bullets whistled overhead. No platoon knew to a certainty what its neighbor was doing. Some bold man sprang out of shell-craters to seek close quarters or to try to reach a machine-gun, only to fall back dead into his companion's arms. Groups found that they were being slowly exterminated by scattering bullets, while any movement in any direction meant instant extermination. Always the spits of dust showed bullets coming in two directions—as ridge and valley wall looked down on them. The wonder is that they did not break into a panic. But that was not in the character of such men. On the contrary, they continued their efforts to advance. How many deeds of heroism, unseen by any observer, deserved Medals of Honor will never be known.

If ever the determined faces of sturdy men coming up in reserve were welcome, they were those of the Australians, as they appeared for their part of the program—which was to "leap-frog" our troops and carry on the advance: to find that they had hot work in prospect from the moment they passed the tape we had strung for our jumping-off line. Our battalion in Le Catelet having been effectively cut off, the battalion which had kept its footing in the Hindenburg line at Bony stayed on, mingled with the oncoming Australians, for that night and another day of fighting. The Australians who had passed through the 30th Division, on its objective at Nauroy, for a farther advance to the next village of Joncourt, were obliged to relinquish their gains in order to bend back their line diagonally to join up with the mixed Australians and New Yorkers at Bony. The German hinge at that point was not to be broken until the next day; north of Bony the 27th's line that night slanted back, in order to face as far as possible the murderous fire on its exposed flank, to the outpost line from which they had been unable to advance. The 27th had suffered 4,000 casualties since September 27th. Now, as fast as units could be gathered and re-formed, it was withdrawn for reorganization, as was the 30th, leaving the Australians to finish the task. The fact that our Meuse-Argonne offensive had slowed down, and that at other points the progress of the general Allied movement was being stayed, may account, judging from German reports I have read, for a return of German staff confidence which was imparted to the German veterans, who, after their brilliant and savage use of their amazing opportunities against the 27th, kept up their resistance point by point for four days before the Australians had gained the complete objective set for the 27th on September 29th. It is never a pleasant task for any body of troops to have to do the work assigned to another; but the Australian staff had made the plan, and the "Aussies" accepted the legacy we had left with a spirit in keeping with their comradeship for the Americans. From our staff and our army, from the state of New York and our country, as well as from the men of the 27th, ever willing to give it with full hearts, they deserve the tribute due to their bravery and fellowship.