And yet the importance of the battle can hardly be measured in territory regained, and much less in booty or in guns. "This signal success of the American Army in its first offensive was of prime importance," wrote General Pershing in his report to Secretary Baker. "The Allies found that they had a formidable army to aid them, and the enemy learned finally that he had one to reckon with." Moreover, the pinching out of the St. Mihiel salient put the American Army in a position to threaten Metz. This threat was one of the factors which caused the enemy to realize a few months later that further resistance could not hope to check the allied armies for any considerable time.
The divisions employed at St. Mihiel comprised many of our best units. Among the divisions engaged were the Eighty-second, the Ninetieth, the Fifth, and the Second, which made up the First Corps, under Major-General Hunter Liggett. In the Third Corps were the Eighty-ninth, the Forty-second, and the First Divisions, under Major-General Joseph T. Dickman. The Fifth Corps, under Major-General George H. Cameron, had the Twenty-sixth Division and a French division. In reserve were the Seventy-eighth, Third, Thirty-fifth, and Ninety-first Divisions. The Eighteenth and Thirty-third were also available.
CHAPTER XXIV
MEUSE-ARGONNE BEGINS
HAVING successfully accomplished one piece of work, the American Army received as its reward another piece of work. The reward consisted in the fact that the second task assigned to Pershing's men was, perhaps, the hardest possible at any point in the line. Since 1915 the Argonne Forest had been a rest area for the German Army. Everything had been done to make the position impregnable, and so it was in theory. But the Americans broke that theory and took the forest. So confident were the Germans of their tenancy that they had built all sorts of palatial underground dwellings. Barring light, there was no modern convenience which these dugouts (although that is no fit name) did not possess. Some had running water. All the most pretentious ones had feather-beds, and the big underground rooms were gay with pictures and furniture stolen from the French. The defenses of the positions in the forest included miles and miles of barbed wire, sometimes hidden in the underbrush, and again carried around tree-trunks higher than a man could reach. There were high concrete walls to stop the progress of tanks and deep-pit traps into which they might fall. And machine guns were everywhere.
The Meuse-Argonne campaign, which falls into three phases, reads far differently than the taking of St. Mihiel. Except in its early stages this was no grand running, flawless offensive without a hitch worth mentioning. In the nature of things it could not be so. The Argonne was less susceptible to the laws of military strategy. Warfare in these woods became a struggle between small detached units. Much of the fighting took place in the dark and practically all of it in the rain. The American victory was a triumph of the bomb and the rifle, and perhaps the wire-cutter should be added, over the machine-gun. In many encounters the opposing units fired at each other from short ranges, and directed their fire solely by the flashes of the other fellow's machine-gun. War in the Argonne Forest was a cat-and-dog fight, and Germany was destined to play the cat's usual rôle, though she clawed her hardest.
And yet though many of the phases of the Meuse-Argonne were primitive and elemental in their nature, sound strategy lay behind the campaign. General Pershing in his vivid report explains not only the necessity for the campaign but the objects which he sought and gained. St. Mihiel shook the confidence of the Germans, but neither that success nor those scored by other allied armies was sufficient to batter the Germans into defeat.
"The German Army," wrote General Pershing, "had as yet shown no demoralization, and while the mass of its troops had suffered in morale, its first-class divisions, and notably its machine-gun defense, were exhibiting remarkable tactical efficiency as well as courage. The German General Staff was fully aware of the consequences of a success on the Meuse-Argonne line. Certain that he would do everything in his power to oppose us, the action was planned with as much secrecy as possible, and was undertaken with the determination to use all our divisions in forcing decision. We expected to draw the best German divisions to our front and to consume them while the enemy was held under grave apprehension lest our attack should break his line, which it was our firm purpose to do."
"Our right flank," wrote General Pershing in describing his position at the beginning of the battle, "was protected by the Meuse, while our left embraced the Argonne Forest, whose ravines, hills, and elaborate defense screened by dense thickets, had been generally considered impregnable. Our order of battle from right to left was: the Third Corps from the Meuse to Malancourt, with the Thirty-third, Eightieth, and Fourth Divisions in line, and the Third Division as corps reserve; the Fifth Corps from Malancourt to Vauquois, with Seventy-ninth, Eighty-seventh, and Ninety-first Divisions in line, and the Thirty-second in corps reserve; and the First Corps, from Vauquois to Vienne Le Château, with Thirty-fifth, Twenty-eighth, and Seventy-seventh Divisions in line, and the Ninety-second in corps reserve. The army reserve consisted of the First, Twenty-ninth, and Eighty-second Divisions."
The American Army had no extended vacation after the victory at St. Mihiel. That action had hardly been completed when some of the artillery left its positions and departed for the Meuse-Argonne front. St. Mihiel began on September 12. Just two weeks later the first attack in the long-protracted Meuse-Argonne campaign began. The first portion of this offensive was by far the easiest. It was difficult, to be sure, but the terrific hardships were still to come. One factor which mitigated the task of the troops engaged in the first attack was that again the Germans seemed to have been taken by surprise. The Americans moved very fast over difficult terrain. This was country which had already been sorely disputed, and shell-holes were everywhere. In the places where there were no shell-holes there was barbed wire.
As the attack progressed the German resistance increased. Artillery was moved forward and machine-guns seemed to spring up overnight in that much ploughed and harrowed land. Yet after three days' fighting the Americans had penetrated a distance of from three to seven miles into the enemy's positions, in spite of the large numbers of reserves which were thrown in to check them. Even a German communiqué writer would hardly have the face to maintain that the territory captured by the Americans was of no strategic importance. Every mile that Pershing's men went forward brought them that much nearer to Sedan, and on Sedan rested the whole fate of the German lines in France. But Sedan was still many a weary mile away. The territorial gains in the onward rush of the first three days included the villages of Montfaucon, Exermont, Gercourt, Cuisy, Septsarges, Malancourt, Ivoiry (known to the doughboys, of course, as Solid Ivory), Epinonville, Charpentry, and Very. Ten thousand prisoners were taken.