Our Army at the Front

by Heywood Broun

No attempt will be made here to estimate the relative importance of the work done by the various allied armies in the closing campaigns of the war. This is an interesting, although somewhat ungrateful, task for military experts. In this account we are dealing simply with the fortunes of the American Army. It might not be amiss to suggest that the final victories of the war were won by team-play, and that in such combinations of effort the praise should go to all, just as the labor does.

There need be no controversy, however, about the battle of St. Mihiel. This was an American action. It was under the command of General Pershing himself, and his forces were made up almost entirely of Americans. The French acted in an advisory capacity, and we were dependent, in part, upon them for certain material. General Pershing in his official report says: "The French were generous in giving us assistance in corps and army artillery, with its personnel." We were also under obligation to the French for tanks, but here they were not able to assist us so liberally, because they had barely enough tanks for their own use. One of the surprising features of the St. Mihiel victory is that it was achieved with comparatively slight tank preparation.

St. Mihiel represented the biggest staff problem attempted by the American Army up to that time. It was, of course, a battle which dwarfed any previous action in the military history of America. Compared to the battle of St. Mihiel, the whole Spanish-American War was a mere patrol encounter, and Gettysburg itself a minor engagement. With the force at his command, and the weapons, General Pershing could have annihilated the army of either Grant or Lee in half an hour. Some idea of the magnitude of the battle may be gathered from the report of General Pershing: that he had under his command approximately 600,000 troops, or four times the peace standing of the entire American military establishment before the war.

It is difficult enough to move an army of that size, with its supplies and its guns, under any conditions, but the plan for the St. Mihiel offensive called for a surprise attack, and it was necessary to make all the troop movements at night. In spite of the vaunted efficiency of the German intelligence, there seems to be evidence that their high command had little inkling of the magnitude of the blow impending or the date on which it would fall. The St. Mihiel salient had been so long a fixture in the geography of the battle-lines that no change was expected.

In preparation for the offensive the First Army was organized on August 10, under the personal command of General Pershing. Following this move the Americans took over part of the line. This became a permanent American sector. Pershing took command of the sector on August 30. At that time the sector under his command began at Port sur Seille, and extended through a point opposite St. Mihiel, then twisting north to a point opposite Verdun. The preparations for the offensive included, in addition to guns, men, and tanks, the greatest concentration which the American Army had ever known in transport, ambulances, and aircraft. Most of the planes in action were of French make, and some were flown by the French, but there were a few of our manufacture, for on August 7 an American squadron, completely equipped by American production, made its appearance at the front.

The preparations for the offensive were minute as well as extensive. It is, perhaps, worth noting as a sample of the thoroughness with which the American Army went about the job that no less than 100,000 maps were issued which showed the character of the terrain around St. Mihiel, with all the natural and artificial defenses carefully noted, and some estimate of the strength in which the enemy was likely to be found at each point. The army had 6,000 telephone instruments, and at least 5,000 miles of wire, so there was no difficulty in keeping in touch with what the men were doing at every point. The attack began at 1 A.M. on September 12. The American artillery had been crowded into the sector to such an extent that the German artillery was completely dominated. The bombardment lasted for four hours, and then the troops went forward, preceded by a few tanks, but there were points where infantry went forward without the aid of these auxiliaries. It was misty when the seven divisions in the front line sprang out of their trenches, and this helped to keep losses down. Indeed, throughout the battle the resistance proved much less determined than had been anticipated.

Although the bombardment had been short, most of the wire had been cut. There remained a few jobs, however, for the wire-cutters, and for other soldiers armed with torpedoes. With one method or the other our men smashed what was left of the wire guarding the enemy first-line trenches. And then the waves came on and over. There was little resistance in the first line, for the Germans in these positions were pretty well demoralized by the terrific artillery pounding which they had received and the sight of thousands upon thousands of Americans rushing upon them from out of the fog. For the most part they surrendered without resistance. As the advance progressed resistance became stiffer at some points, but the attackers kept pretty generally up to schedule, or ahead of it. Thiaucourt was taken by the First Corps. The Fourth Corps fought its way through Nonsard. The Second Colonial Corps was not asked to make a very great advance, but it had the most difficult terrain over which to work. It had won all its objects early in the day. A difficult task was also set for the Fifth Corps, which took three ridges and then immediately had to repulse a counter-attack. St. Mihiel fell early in the day. And in an incredibly short period a salient which had been in the enemy hands for almost four years was pinched out of existence.

Everybody was delighted to find that in one respect the American preparations had been too extensive. No less than thirty-five hospital-trains had been assembled back of the attacking forces, and there were beds for 16,000 men in the advanced areas, with 55,000 a little farther back. As a matter of fact, less than one-tenth of these facilities proved necessary, for the American casualties were only 7,000, and many of these were slight. The German General Staff always maintained that it had anticipated the attack and that its men were under orders to retire, as the salient was of no strategic importance. The last assertion may be true, but there seems to be little to support the rest, for the total of prisoners was 16,000, with 443 guns. The quantity of material captured was enormous. In a single depot there were found 4,000 shells for 77's and 350,000 rounds of rifle cartridges. Among the other assorted booty were 200 machine-guns, 42 trench-mortars, 30 box-cars, 4 locomotives, 30,000 hand-grenades, 13 trucks, and 40 wagons. The number of German helmets which fell to the doughboys was naturally countless.

The attack was so completely successful and ran so closely to schedule that there were few surprises. A little group of newspaper men, however, were frank to admit that they had encountered one. Following closely upon the heels of the attacking troops, they came to a village which was being heavily shelled by the Germans. Accordingly, the newspaper men took refuge in a dugout until such time as the opportunity for observation should be more favorable. Coming from the other direction, a group of German prisoners entered the same village. They had surrendered to one of the waves of onrushing Americans, but everybody was too busy to conduct them personally to the rear. They had merely been instructed to keep marching until they encountered some American officers or doughboys who were not otherwise engaged, and then surrender themselves. When the shells fell fast about them the Germans darted for the dugout in which the newspaper men had previously taken refuge. The correspondents were astounded and disturbed when sixteen field-gray soldiers came tumbling in upon them. They could only imagine that at some point the Germans had struck back and that the counter-attack had broken through. And the correspondents admit that without a moment's hesitation they gave one look at the Germans and then raised their weaponless hands and cried "Kamerad." The perplexing feature of the situation was that the Germans did exactly the same thing, and a complete deadlock ensued until a squad of doughboys happened along that way and took the Germans in charge.

Both sides in the battle were willing to admit that their foemen had fought with courage. While it is true that the first waves of the American Army had an easy time, there was stiff but ineffectual resistance by German machine-gunners later in the day. Many of these men served their guns without offering surrender, and had to be bombed or bayoneted. In a document by a German intelligence officer, which fell into American hands much later in the war, a very frank tribute was paid to the extraordinary courage of the Americans. The German officer said that they seemed to be absolutely without fear on the offensive, and must be reckoned with as shock troops, although they sometimes fought greenly. He reported, however, that American leadership was less impressive, and stated that the American Army might have gone much farther if it had been more quick to take advantage of its early success. But this would seem to be a mere effort to whistle up courage in the German General Staff, for a consideration of the territory which fell into American hands as a result of the attack shows some measure of its success. This comprised 152 square miles which was recovered from the Germans. And in this liberated district were 72 villages.