Its right exposed after an advance of three miles on the 8th, digging in under the bombardment and repulsing counter-attacks, the 29th was not to attempt to advance on the 9th; but the 33rd had orders to go to Sivry on the banks of the Meuse, whose possession was most important. By noon it had fought its way through Chaume Wood, and by dark its patrols, infiltrating around machine-gun nests and under machine-gun fire from the slopes were in Sivry. All that night it was under gas and shell-fire. The next day it must make sure of Sivry. The 29th was to attack on its right in support. Despite the artillery concentrations on the whole movement laboring in the bowl, we were still to try to break through to the Borne de Cornouiller. This was a vain ambition, which the Illinois men and the Blue and Greys none the less valorously tried to achieve.
The 33rd had brought more reserves across the river, which had to pass through powerful artillery barrages to relieve the decimated battalions at the front. They actually reached the ridge east of Sivry, right under the guns of that towering Hill 378 of the Borne de Cornouiller. On their right the 29th again and again charged for the possession of the Plat-Chêne ravine, which was a corridor swept with plunging fire from right and left and in front, and saturated with gas. Casualties were enormous, in keeping with the courage of this new division inspired by the heritage of both Blue and Grey. It was futile to persist in the slaughter of such brave and willing men; futile for the 33rd to try to hold the exposed salient of the Sivry ridge; but every shell they received was one spared our men on the slopes of the west bank of the Meuse. Austrian troops which had been holding the line against them were replaced by veteran Prussians and Wurtemburgers, who knew how to make the most of their positions, and who answered attacks with counter-attacks. As the left flank which must not yield the river bank, the 33rd intrenched in the Dans les Vaux valley through the Chaume Wood. We were within a mile of the Borne, but what a horrible mile to traverse. The first stage of that detached battle east of the Meuse, so important in its relation to the main battle, was over. Its second stage I shall describe later.
XXI
SOME CHANGES IN COMMAND
John Pershing of Missouri following Pétain and Nivelle—Training his chiefs—The solidity of Liggett—From schoolmaster of theory to Army command—The wiry Bullard—His mark on the pioneer division—The inexorable Summerall, crusader, martinet, and leader of men—The imperturbable Hines.
When from the window of a luxurious office thirty stories above the pavement I looked down upon the human current of Broadway, and over the roof-tops of the tongue of Manhattan, and across the bridges to other roof-tops, and upon the traffic of bay and river, I thought of that little room, first door to the left upstairs, in the town hall of Souilly, where more men than all of service age in all the city of New York had been commanded in two of the greatest battles of history. The "sacred road" to Verdun took the place of Broadway; the volcano of unceasing artillery fire, the place of the city's muffled roar.
In this little room Pétain had said, "They shall not pass," and so wrought that they did not pass; and Nivelle had shown me his maps and plans for the brilliant re-taking of Douaumont and Vaux in the fall of 1916, which was to make him commander-in-chief as the exemplar of a system of attack upon which he staked his reputation in the Allied offensive of 1917. In those days no one dreamed that American khaki would stream along the "sacred road," and American guns again set the hills trembling with their blasts; or that John Pershing of Missouri from this little room would direct the largest force we had ever sent into action in the battle which was to be the final answer to German aggression.
The Chief of Staff's room, its walls hung with maps, was across the hall from the Commanding General's, as it had been in the Verdun days. Then as now it sent across to the General's desk slips of paper with the digested news of the battle, which he could follow by reference to his own maps. Now as then a cloistered quiet pervaded the building which had been the center of a small town. Orderlies stood on guard, and adjutants on guard above them. The lights behind the black-curtained windows burned late, as on the basis of the day's news plans for the next day's action were made—plans for another advance against the Germans, this time, instead of resistance to their advance.
"You never know what is in the C.-in-C.'s mind, and how it is coming out," said his aide. "When it comes, it comes quick and definite—just like the outburst of a bombardment for an offensive which has been weeks in preparation."