All the new troops going to France have been "blooded" gradually in minor engagements and have been frequently in contact with the enemy before being launched into a major operation. Virtually the only exception to this was the case of the seven divisions of the British regular army that landed in France and were rushed at once into the maelstrom of the first German onslaught in 1914, retreating day by day and being slaughtered and cut to pieces constantly, until they were almost wiped out.
It was the intention that the Pennsylvania troops should be carried by slow and easy stages into actual battle, too, but a change in the Boche plans decreed otherwise. Thus, Pennsylvania regiments, with the engineers fighting as infantry, found themselves hurled immediately into front line fighting in one of the most ambitious German operations of the war.
The maximum German effort of the July thrust was made directly along their front. It seemed almost as if the enemy knew he faced many new troops at this point and counted on that to enable him to make a break-through.
But Pennsylvania held. The great offensive came to smash.
Official reports compiled from information gathered from prisoners and made public afterward showed that the enemy engaged fourteen divisions—approximately 170,000 men—in the first line in this part of the battlefield. Behind these, in support, were probably fourteen additional divisions, some of which, owing to the losses inflicted on those in the front line, were compelled to take part in the fighting. No figures are available as to the number of French, but their lines were so thin that Americans had to be thrust in to stop gaps, and there were fewer than 15,000 men in the Pennsylvania regiments.
CHAPTER IV
"Kill or Be Killed"
Nothing human could halt those gray-green waves in the first impetus of the German assault across the Marne. They gained the bridgeheads, and were enabled to seek cover and spread out along the river banks. The grim gray line, like an enormous, unclean caterpillar, crept steadily across the stream. When enough men had gained the southern bank, the assault was carried to the Franco-American lines.