Twenty-three days in the welter of the Meuse slopes, it had been able to remain all that time in gassed woods and ravines in cold autumn rains, owing to its character that made every ounce of energy answer a resolute will to well-directed ends; for this bull-dog also had something of the nature of the opossum and the panther. It knew how to spring. The depth of the division's advance was eight miles, and the marvel of this was that every yard since the first day had been gained in frontal attack against machine-gun nests protected by superior artillery fire. It had taken 2,731 prisoners and 44 guns, some of them of large caliber, with a loss of 6,000 officers and men killed and wounded. A proud division the 4th, with the right to be proud, though it had no parades in its honor, as its personnel came from all parts of the country, when it returned home.
MAP NO. 9
DIVISIONS EAST OF THE MEUSE.
During the latter days of its service, it began to realize that our own artillery fire was increasing. This seemed almost too good to be true, and of course, as the men remarked, it came after the 4th's offensive work was over. The fact was that our army was receiving more guns. It was also noticed that there was less flanking artillery fire. This was due not only to our attacks on the Romagne positions, which absorbed more and more of the attention of the German gunners of the whale-back, but also to the driving of still another wedge, this time on the east side of the Meuse—the wedge which at one stage of the battle the 1st was intended to drive before that on the Aire wall became more vital.
The farther we went, the more bitterly we realized the murderous handicap of a force advancing on exposed slopes on one bank of a river, with its flank at right angles to the other bank held by the enemy far back of its reserves. After the attack of October 4th on the right went forward naked to this terrible flanking fire, the French Seventeenth Corps, in support of the forthcoming attack of the 9th, including two American divisions, the 29th and the 33rd, under its command, was to make a drive from the old trench system at Samogneux—the start line of the German Verdun offensive of 1916, and opposite the line from which our army had started on September 26th—down the east bank of the Meuse. The French engaged at many points on the Allied front were short of troops; but despite all the calls from other points the high command had finally fixed its eye on the Borne de Cornouiller.
Our Illinois men of the 33rd Division had been holding our side of the river bank, dug in in face of the other bank and the German flank, with only divisional artillery to answer the long-range artillery from the heights. Having won attention for its brilliant swinging movement which brought its front to the river bank on the first day of the battle, the 33rd was now to undertake a far more difficult, and a spectacular and daring, maneuver. Every veteran from Cæsar's day on the Rhine to Grant's and Lee's on the Potomac knows what it means to force a crossing of an unfordable stream under fire. In this instance it must be done under frowning heights, in the days when machine-gun bullets carry three thousand yards, and shells, according to the caliber of the gun, from three to seven times as far. There were to be two bridges; one at Brabant, 120 feet long, and one at Consenvoye, 150 feet long.
In building their own exclusive road over the Mort Homme, which enabled the rolling kitchens to bring up hot meals to the infantry, the Illinois engineers had shown their capacity for "rustling," which they now applied in gathering material for their new task. In broad daylight, in full view of the enemy's guns which forced them to wear their gas masks, they brought their boards and timbers to the river bank and did their building. Shells were falling on their labors at Consenvoye at the rate of ninety an hour; but that did not interrupt their labors. Men fell, but others kept on the job. Punctuality was a strong point with the Illinois men. The bridges must be up on time, and they were.
The time of crossing depended upon the movement of our 29th Division, coming up on the east bank as the flank of the advance of two French divisions. At 9 A. M. the 29th passed the word, and the regiment of the 33rd which had been assembled in the Forges Wood rushed for the bridges. Night would have been a more favorable time for crossing, perhaps; but that was not on the cards. All the divisional artillery was pounding the opposite bank as a shield, while the French artillery was also busy, and the advance of the infantry on the other bank was drawing fire. Thoroughly drilled for their part, the Illinois men lost no time in the crossing, which was effected with slight casualties. Now under command of the Seventeenth Corps, joining up with the flank of the 29th, it worked its way for a mile and a half up the river bank until it dug in at night on the edge of the Chaume Wood after a faultless day's work.
In the operations east of the Meuse now begun, I shall describe only the actions of our own divisions. The 29th Division, under command of Major-General Charles G. Morton, had taken the name of the "Blue and Grey." Many of its Guardsmen were grandsons of veterans from New Jersey, Delaware, and Virginia. After nearly two months in the quiet trench sector at Belfort, it had been marched on the night of the 8th past the ruins of villages in the Verdun battle area for its initiation into two weeks of fighting, which showed that one side of the trough of the Meuse had no preference over the other in the resistance which the enemy had to offer.
A system of hills extending from the Verdun forts to the Borne de Cornouiller formed the walls of a bowl, which the French Corps in a fan-shaped movement was to ascend. Their slopes were wooded and cut by ravines commanding the bottom of the bowl itself, which was irregular, but everywhere in view of the heights. The 29th was to drive straight toward the Borne de Cornouiller. Upon its success on the first day, may it be repeated, depended largely the success of the 33rd's crossing of the Meuse. The farther away from the river, the stronger were the enemy's positions. Advancing without any artillery preparation, the 29th took the enemy completely by surprise. It was twenty minutes before he brought down his artillery fire. This gave the Blue and Greys a good start. After hot work at close quarters they captured Malbrouck Hill, which was a strong point in the German support trench system of Verdun days. Then passing across the open under increasing German gun-fire, they overran all the machine-gun nests in the dense Consenvoye Wood. There they were halted by orders to allow the division on their right to come up. Combat groups which had reached Molleville farm and the Grande Montagne Wood were called in, and the position consolidated during the night. The enemy by this time was fully awake to the plan of the Seventeenth Corps. He unloosed that torrent of shells and gas from the heights of the rim of the bowl which was not to cease for three weeks.