Our Greatest Battle (The Meuse-Argonne)

by Frederick Palmer

The "Liberty" Division trying to clear the Forest on its own—The battalion which refused to be lost—The "scalloping" succeeds—Out of the Forest—The 82nd across the Aire—The 77th takes Saint-Juvin, though not according to plan—And finally gets across the Aire to Grandpré.

Its line the breadth of the Argonne Forest, no division could have waited more impatiently than the 77th or "Liberty" Division of New York City upon the driving of the wedge on the eastern wall of the Aire and the clearing of the Aire trough, which, to serve its purpose, must be accompanied in turn by the progress of the "scalloping" movement of the French on their left. The "Liberty" men's apprehension lest they might not make the most of any advance on their flanks amounted to an obsession. If they halted, they found that the enemy had time to cut openings in the foliage to give his machine-guns fields of fire, string chicken-wire between trunks of trees, build elements of trenches on the opposite slopes of gullies, and play other tricks in the tangles of underbrush. The best way to keep the German out of mischief was to keep him on the move.

On the 29th and 30th of September the "Liberty" men had made good advances, as we know. In the early days of October, while there was a lull in the offensive on other parts of our front, they were having a very busy time. As the "scalloping" movement against the escarpments at either edge of the Forest was delayed, they would try to do without this elbowing assistance on their flanks. As for being "expended," this was out of consideration while half of the Forest was yet to be taken. No other division had any rights in the Forest. It was theirs, with the understanding that they prove the nine points of the law by taking possession of their estate. They must keep on fighting until they saw the light of the Grandpré gap at the end of its dark reaches. Such a state of mind is conducive to fighting morale. There was a personal property interest at stake.

On the morning of October 2nd, they made a general attack of their own. On the right in the Naza Wood they ran into a system of detached trenches and machine-gun positions which were invisible until the bullets began to sing and hand-grenades began to fly, while their exposed flank left no doubt that the Germans were still in force on the Taille l'Abbé in front of the 28th. The objective of the left was the Apremont-Binarville road. Not only were the "Libertys" a "pushful" division, but there was never any lack of pushing by their commander. The battalion on the left was told to keep on going until it reached the road, no matter what happened on its flanks. It obeyed orders. After it arrived, it found that there were no Americans on one flank or French on the other. Only Germans. No messages came through from the brigade; messengers sent back disappeared in the woods to the rear, and fell into German hands.

This was the incident of the "Lost Battalion." Technically, the battalion was not lost. It knew where it was on the map. Practically, it was isolated from the rest of the division—surrounded, besieged. Whether they are described as lost or not, the men of the battalion will not soon forget their experience. When they went into action, they had two days' rations. As most of them had eaten one day's on the morning of the 3rd, they had the other day's to last them—they knew not how long. They did not have to expend much energy, except on patrols and outposts. The thing was to avoid drawing fire and wasting their ammunition. If they rose from their fox-holes, where they were dug in among the roots of trees on the northern slope of the ravine below the road, a spray of machine-gun fire, or the burst of a shell, convinced them that sedentary habits are best when you are fasting. At the bottom of the ravine was a swamp which protected them on that side, while the crest of the ridge above the road protected them on the other. Their pleasantest diversion was watching shells which missed their aim, harmlessly throwing up fountains of mud in the swamp.

Some of the shells were supposed to have been fired by the French, who were said to be under the impression that the battalion must have already surrendered. The Germans held the view that it ought to surrender, according to rules. When they sent in a messenger with the suggestion, supported by the gratuitous information that the battalion was hopelessly surrounded, it was received not even politely, let alone sympathetically, by the reserve major in command, who had gone from his law office to a training camp.

The major shaved every morning as usual. He never let the empty feeling in his stomach communicate itself to his head; he was as smiling and confident when he went among his men as if their situation were a part of the routine of war. He had disposed them skillfully; they had learned by experience where to dig in to escape fire; and they were amazingly secure, though they were surrounded. It became bad form to be hungry. When they put out panels to inform our aviators of their location, the panels only drew fire, and seem to have failed in their object as lamentably as the dropping of rations from American planes, which probably the Germans ate.

Of course, the division was making efforts to reach the battalion, being stopped by machine-gun fire. The 77th was fast held during those five days. Meanwhile the 1st had driven its wedge along the wall of the Aire, and on the morning of the 7th the 82nd had begun its attacks in the valley, while the French were ready to move up on the western edge of the Forest. These successes, and the disposition of the 77th to take advantage of them, started the retirement of the Germans in the Forest. On the night of the 7th the survivors of the lost battalion rose from their fox-holes as the figures of Americans came through the darkness to their relief. Their first thought was food. Then they found that they had become heroes. There had been a compelling appeal to the imagination in the thought of this band of Metropolitans from city streets, stoically holding their ground when surrounded by German veterans in a forest in France. They did a fine thing, but no finer than many other battalions whose deeds attracted less public attention.

Now, with the forest edges being "scalloped" according to the original plan, the 77th might carry out, after two weeks of travail, its mission of "mopping up" as the pressure on its flanks was relieved. On the 8th it conquered the Naza positions, its right coming up even with the Taille l'Abbé. The next day, while the 1st was making its second great attack, and the 82nd was again attacking the Cornay heights, while the French were rapidly advancing on the left, the 77th swung ahead for a mile and a half. The Forest was now to be the 77th's for the marching. The retiring enemy offered only rearguard action from machine-guns and concentrations of shell-fire on roads and open spaces, which were mosquito bites after the kind of opposition which they had been facing. All they had to do was to keep up their supplies and ammunition,—and that was a good deal over the miserable roads,—and pick their way through the thickets and in and out among the tree-trunks, across ravines, on to the gap of Grandpré at the Forest's end.