II
INTO LINE FOR ATTACK
The Meuse-Argonne and the Somme Battle of 1916—The British had four months of preparation—And a trained army—But a resolute enemy—Our untried troops—Outguessing Ludendorff—Prime importance of surprise—Blindman's buff—What it means to move armies—Fixing supply centers—Staffs arrive—Their inexperience—Learning on the run—Our confidence—Aiming for the stars—Up on time.
Comparisons with the Battle of the Somme, the first great British offensive, which I observed through the summer of 1916, often occurred to me during the Meuse-Argonne battle. In both a new army, in its vigor of aggressive impulse, continued its attack with an indomitable will, counting its gains by hundreds of yards, but never for a moment yielding the initiative in its tireless attrition.
The British were four months in preparing for their thrust on the basis of nearly two years' training in active warfare, with all their arrangements for transport and supply settled in a small area only an hour's steaming across the Channel from home. Behind their lines they built light railroads and highways. They had ample billeting space, and their great hospitals were within easy reach. They gathered road-repairing machinery and trained their labor battalions; built depots and yards; established immense dumps of ammunition and engineering material; brought their heavy guns into position methodically, and registered them with caution over a long period; set an immense array of trench mortars in secure positions; dug deep assembly trenches for the troops to occupy before going "over the top"; and ran their water pipes up to the front line, ready for extension into conquered territory.
MAP NO. 3
OFFENSIVES OF SEPTEMBER, 1918. RELATION OF MEUSE-ARGONNE BATTLE TO THE DECISIVE ALLIED OFFENSIVE MOVEMENT.
Their divisions had been seasoned by long trench experience, tested in the terrific fire of the Ypres salient and trained in elaborate trench raids for a great offensive. All their methods were as deliberate as British thoroughness required. Units were carefully rehearsed in their parts, and their liaison worked out by staffs that had long operated together. Commanders of battalions, brigades, and divisions had been tried out, and corps commanders and staffs developed.
On the other hand, the Germans knew that the British attack was coming. Their army was in the prime of its numbers and efficiency. They had immence forces of reserves to draw upon to meet an offensive which was centered in one sector, with no danger of having to meet offensives in another sector. We were striking in one of several offensives, each having for its object rapidity and suddenness of execution, over about the same breadth of front as the British in 1916; and against the Germans, not in their prime, as I have said, but when they had lost the initiative and were deteriorating.