Our Greatest Battle (The Meuse-Argonne)

by Frederick Palmer

On the 80th's left during the advance of October 4th-11th was the bull-dog 4th Division, under its bull-dog commander, Major-General John L. Hines, which had been continuously in line since the first day of the battle. Hines had been trained in the school of the pioneer 1st. When he was with the 1st, he considered that it was the "best" of the Regular divisions. Since he had been in command of the 4th, he had changed his mind as the result of maturer judgment and more experience in the field. The 4th was now the "best" of the Regular divisions. The question of whether or not it was the "best" of all our divisions, including National Guard and National Army, so enlarges the field of rivalry that it must be left to the decision of divisional historians.

No one on the Army staff considered relieving the 4th before the attack of October 4th. If any man of the division thought of relief, he knew that the bull-dogs might not expect it when they were in a position where the Army could not afford to allow them to loosen their grip on the enemy. What incoming division could familiarize itself on short notice with that treacherous front in the trough of the Meuse river, which the 4th knew by experience?

Its right rested in the woods on the west bank of the Meuse, while the German front line was four miles back on the east bank on its flank. Enemy machine-guns had hiding-places on the banks not only of the river but of the Meuse Canal, which follows the course of the river. Beyond the river bottoms, on the east bank, were many patches of woods on the first slopes, which brought field artillery within range of the 4th's front, while the heavy artillery in the ravines and woods around the Borne de Cornouiller, or Hill 378, was also in range. To this quite gratuitous bombardment, entirely out of our own battle zone, from the eastern gallery upon the pit of the amphitheater of the 4th's action, we had no means of replying. It must be accepted with the same philosophy as an earthquake or any other violence of nature. In front of the 4th's right flank was the town of Brieulles in the river bend, which held batteries of field guns, its surrounding swamps defended by machine-gun nests giving it the character of a fortress with a moat. To the left of it was the Fays Wood, facing more open ground, and back of that the frontal gallery of heights holding still more artillery, while on their left was the gallery of the whale-back.

Campaigners who have been for a long time sleeping on doors and the hard ground, when they try a bed again find, as I found on one occasion, that it is so unnaturally soft that they lie down on the floor before they can sleep. The men of the 4th had become so accustomed to enfilade shell-fire that they would hardly have felt at home without it. If they had been receiving shells from the rear as well as from front and flank, I think that General Hines would only have set his jaw the harder, and his bull-dogs would have said: "We thought we'd be hearing from you. Now we know the worst. But you can't make us let go." When they took a piece of woods from the Germans, it was immediately gassed. Some of them thought little more of putting on their gas masks than a baseball player of putting on his mitt. Already a veteran division when they came into line, they had taken an excoriating course in practical warfare which made their previous experience comparatively that of a grammar school. There could be nothing new in store for them in the attack on October 4th; they could be under none of the illusions of fresh troops in their first plunge into the cauldron.

Army ambition chose to make them another wedge—we were falling into the habit of wedges as the only means to progress—which was to take the Fays Wood; then the Forest Wood (Bois de Forêt), by crossing open ground under the enfilade of Brieulles and all the guns on the other side of the Meuse. This may have seemed a reasonable mission for them, as they were already so hardened to flanking fire. Indeed the flank of this division was exposed in its drive down the Meuse valley in much the same way as the 1st's on the Aire wall, with the difference that its right carried down the slopes falling toward the river in plain view of the heights on the other side.

The 4th could be trusted to do not only its valorous but its professional best. In view of the galleries of guns overlooking the sector, it seems superfluous to say that it had not enough artillery support. The bull-dogs had given up calling for artillery assistance. They had been under superior artillery fire so long that they took it for granted that they would have to attack under support of artillery inferior to the enemy's when they drove their wedge into tiers of machine-gun nests; but they had in their favor their amazing capacity for judging where shells were going to hit and taking cover before they burst, for slipping out from under barrages without losing their heads, and thus keeping their formations, and for filtering in between concentrations. It was amazing how many German shells were required to make a casualty in the 4th; otherwise there would not have been enough men of the division left for a charge on the morning of October 4th, when their waves went forward with that suppleness of adaptability which is the difference between drill-ground and veteran precision.

Their line of advance in the open plowed by shells, they carried all the machine-gun nests in the Fays Wood, put the wood behind them, and reached the Cunel-Brieulles road. So they had driven home their wedge, a very sharp-pointed one. Their left flank was exposed to the Ogons Wood, which the 80th could not reach in its repeated charges, and to the Cunel Wood beyond, which the 3rd had not taken, and to the guns of the whale-back. On their immediate front they faced the machine-gun fire from the western portion of the Peut de Faux Wood on their left, and on their right from a series of trenches on a ridge which supported the Kriemhilde, while the increasing volume of fire on both flanks emphasized the German intention to permit no rash American flying column to slip down the river valley in flank of the whale-back. Thus the advance was in the narrow angle of a murderously sharp salient on bad ground. This could not be deepened into the jaws of hell; it could not be retained except at a futile sacrifice. The bull-dogs could dodge shells from across the Meuse, but they could not dodge a hose play of machine-gun bullets coming from both flanks. If they managed protection in one direction, they could not manage it from the other. Skillfully making a virtue of necessity, they withdrew in the night to the line of the Ville-aux-Bois farm, where they were still in a salient, but one which their craft in taking cover and their tenacity could hold, and did hold against three determined counter-attacks under strong barrages against the Fays Wood. On the 9th the tactical plan required that they mark time until the 80th had reached a given point, as the 80th in turn waited on the advance of the 3rd. The day was overcast; it was already dusk at 5.40 P.M., when word was given for the 4th to charge as the start of three days' fighting more bitter than the division had yet known.

Draw a line east and west through the 4th's front, and it would now have passed to the north of the Borne de Cornouiller, whose guns were throwing their shells into the right rear of the charge. Their fire was joined by that from all the other galleries, while the machine-guns from Brieulles swept a field of targets revealed by the light of bursting shells. Barrages of gas shells were laid across the path of the charge and into the woods ahead. This was particularly trying in the gathering darkness, over ground where landmarks could not be distinguished. The bull-dog did not take hold this time. There was nothing to grip except the murderous flashes. To go on was only to court a fearful casualty list and inevitable confusion and disorganization in the darkness, which could not be readily repaired.

The troops were recalled, while the German gunners continued to shell the field of their advance, thinking that they were still moving forward. The next morning, they started early in order to have a full day before them. In face of the same kind of deluge of gas and shells, and trench-mortar in addition to machine-gun fire, and under the support of their own barrage, they made one bite of the tongue of Martinvaux Wood with its trench line on the right. They passed through the eastern portion of the Peut de Faux Wood, where the undergrowth was dense and there was no protecting men with a barrage. Advance elements charged across the ravine into the larger Forêt Wood; but it was hopeless to try to consolidate in the midst of gas and machine-gun fire from the depth of the wood. By this time the line was past Brieulles, whose guns and machine-guns were of course stabbing the flank at close quarters.

Brieulles, considering the cost of taking it, was not so important to immediate Army purpose as thrusting the wedge into the flank of the whale-back. So Brieulles, which was not to be ours until we won the whale-back three weeks later, had to be borne; and it was the way of the 4th to bear such thrusts in the ribs without flinching, as it prepared for another attack the next day under the plunging fire from the galleries. Beginning again at 7 A.M., when it had finished its day's work it was through the gassed Forêt Wood, and had sent its patrols up on Hill 299 beyond. This was the high-water mark of its arduous and glorious part in the battle. It had gone as far as anything but tactical madness would permit, until the heights of the whale-back and east of the Meuse could be broken. Until October 19th, it held its gains under continual gassing and cross artillery fire.