History of the World War

by Jr. Francis A. March; Richard J. Beamish

[Illustration: Map: Belgium and Eastern France, show the front from
Ypres south to Rheims.]
THE LAST DESPERATE DRIVES OF THE GERMANS

On July 15th came the last of the great offensives. It was a smash on a sixty-mile line from Chateau-Thierry up the Marne, around Rheims, and then east to a few miles west of the Argonne forest. This offensive at the start made a penetration of from three to five miles, but was held firmly and much of the gain lost, through the counter-attacks of the Allies. It was at this point that the American troops first began to be seriously felt, and it was at this point that General Foch took up the story, and began the great series of Allied drives which were to crush the German power. But there had been many days of great anxiety before the turn of the tide.

The objects of the German drives were doubtless more or less dependent upon their success. The first drive in Picardy, in the direction of Amiens had apparently as its object to drive a wedge between the French and British and the object was so nearly attained that only the heroic work of General Carey saved the Allies from disaster.

The Fifth British army, which had borne the brunt of the German attack, had found itself almost crushed by the sheer weight of numbers. The whole line was broken up and it seemed as if the road was open to Amiens. French reinforcements could not come up in time; bridges could not be blown up because the engineers were all killed. Orders came to General Carey at two o'clock in the morning, March 26th, to hold the gap. He at once proceeded to gather an extemporized army.

Every available man was rounded up, among others a body of American engineers. Laborers, sappers, raw recruits as well as soldiers of every arm. There were plenty of machine guns, but few men knew how to handle them. With this scratch army in temporary trenches, he lay for six days, and as Lloyd George said, "They held the German army and closed that gap on the way to Amiens."

During this fight General Carey rode along the lines shouting encouraging words to his hard-pressed men. He did not know whether he would get supplies of ammunition and provisions or not, but he stuck to it. Later on the regular troops arrived. The American engineers, who had been fighting, immediately returned to their base, and resumed work laying out trenches. General Rawlinson, Commander of the British army at that point, sent the commanding officer of the Americans engaged, the following letter:

The army Commander wishes to record officially his appreciation of the excellent work your regiment has done in assisting the British army to resist the enemy's powerful offensive during the last ten days. I fully realize that it has been largely due to your assistance that the enemy has been checked, and I rely on you to assist us still further during the few days that are still to come before I shall be able to relieve you in the line. I consider your work in the line to be greatly enhanced by the fact that for six weeks previous to your taking your place in the front line your men had been working at such high pressure erecting heavy bridges on the Somme. My best congratulations and warm thanks to all. RAWLINSON.

The demoralization of General Gough's Fifth army, which had thus left an eight-mile gap on the left, and which had been saved at that point by General Carey, permitted also the opening of another gap between its right wing and the Sixth French army. Here General Fayolle did with organized troops what Carey had done with his volunteers further north. The reason for the success of both Carey and Fayolle appears to have been that the German armies had been so thoroughly battered that they were unable to take advantage of the situation. Their regiments had been mixed up, their officers had been separated from their men in the rush of the attack, and before they could recover the opportunity was lost.

The first days of April saw the end of the drive toward Amiens. The Germans claimed the capture of ninety thousand prisoners and one thousand three hundred guns. They had penetrated into the Allies' territory in some points a distance of thirty-five miles. Their new line extended southwest from Arras beyond Albert to the west of Moreuil, which is about nine miles south of Amiens, and then went on west of Pierrepont and Montdidier, curving out at Noyon to the region of the Oise.

The first part of April was a comparative calm, when suddenly there developed the second drive of the German offensive. This drive was not so extensive as the first one, and its object appeared to be to break through the British forces in Flanders and reach the Channel ports. It resulted in a salient embracing an area about three hundred and twenty square miles, and the Germans claimed the capture of twenty thousand prisoners and two hundred guns. It was at this point that General Haig issued his famous order in which he described the British armies as standing with their "backs to the wall." It reads as follows: