Lest We Forget: World War Stories

by John G. Thompson; Inez Bigwood

The German plan as it unfolded itself was to attack, wave after wave, with tremendous numbers of men; to use great quantities of a new and more terrible gas; to pay no attention to losses, but to break through where the French and English lines joined; then to push the French south towards Paris and the English north towards the sea. They expected to take Amiens, forty miles from the mouth of the Somme, and to push down the river to the sea. With the broad river between them and the French, a small force could keep the French from crossing, while the great German army captured or destroyed the British, who would be hemmed in by the sea.

The attack was launched on March 21 over a front of fifty miles and it nearly succeeded. It brought the Germans to within six miles of Amiens, which would have been captured if the English on Vimy Ridge had not prevented them by holding the German line from advancing. The Germans waited a month, planning an attack which should capture Vimy Ridge and prepare the way for the capture of Amiens. In this they were unsuccessful.

Not being able to divide the armies of the French and English or to take the Channel ports, they turned in May toward Paris. They attacked in tremendous force between Rheims and Soissons and pushed forward thirty-two miles to the Marne. On July 15 they launched another great offensive over a front of fifty miles from east of Rheims to west of Château-Thierry. They crossed the Marne and were making some progress when, on July 18, the French and Americans struck them on the flank between Soissons and Château-Thierry. The Germans were forced to retreat, having lost 220,000 men, hundreds of guns, and vast stores.

At this time over 1,000,000 American soldiers were in France. They arrived in time and showed themselves "the bravest of the brave." One of the American units was granted, for its bravery in the Second Battle of the Marne, the only regimental decoration ever awarded by France to a foreign regiment; and the French commander bestowed upon one division the most thrilling praise. "They showed," he said, "discipline that filled the Germans with surprise. They marched with officers at the sides and with closed ranks exactly like veteran French troops."

Italy began operations against Austria in May, 1915. For more than two years, she advanced over almost impassable mountain ranges to the reconquest of the territory Austria had stolen from her. Then, in October, 1917, Italy met with a terrible disaster; she lost 180,000 men and was driven back to the river Piave and to within fifteen miles of Venice. This costly defeat was due partly to lack of supplies which her allies should have furnished her; partly to printed lies dropped from Austrian airplanes among the Italian soldiers telling of the wonderful peace and liberty that had come to Russia, where Germans and Russians were like brothers; and partly to the mistake of Italy and her commanders. It resulted in making all the Allies realize that they could not succeed separately but must work together as one, if they were going to win; and in the appointment of General Ferdinand Foch as commander in chief of all the allied forces in the West, including European Russia.

In the spring of 1918, the Austrians, at Germany's command, renewed their attack and succeeded in crossing the Piave, which in its upper reaches towards the mountains was almost a dry river bed. They waited until, as they supposed, the mountain snows had melted. After many of them were across and after they had been checked on the western bank by the Italians, they attempted to recross the river. In the meantime floods had poured down from the mountains changing the dry bed into a rushing river, deep and broad, in which thousands of the Austrians were lost. Austria was able to make no further effort.

THE EASTERN FRONT

Russia was the first of the Great Powers among the Allies to enter the war, but Germany did not count upon her remaining in it long. German influence, especially that of the German Socialists with the uneducated Russians, was so strong that the Kaiser expected a revolution long before it happened. The Russian leaders were self-seeking, and the Tsar and his advisers were lacking in ability and force. The Germans thought Russia would collapse very soon, and thus leave Germany free to turn and conquer France; after which they could settle with England, and then with the United States.

Until the close of 1916, the Russian armies gave the Germans fierce opposition except when, through treachery of the officers of the government, supplies and ammunition were withheld and the soldiers had to fight cannon, machine guns, and rifles with the butts of their muskets. Of course the Russians were driven back, but not until they had come within one hundred and eighty-five miles of Berlin, which was the nearest approach of an enemy army during the first four years of the war.

In the fall of 1914, the Russian armies suffered through treachery a terrible defeat near Tannenberg in the Masurian Lake region of East Prussia, but the great leader of their armies farther south, Grand Duke Nicholas, invaded Austria, capturing stronghold after stronghold until treachery of Russian officials forced him to retreat. The retreat of his armies was conducted in so masterly a manner that it has ranked him as one of the great generals of the World War.