While this was going on the British field guns came into play with a shrapnel barrage fire which completed the demolition of the entrapped enemy. It was little wonder that later 1,500 German dead could be counted, or that 400 guardsmen surrendered with upheld hands and emotional cries of "Kamerad!"
FRENCH CONTINUE ADVANCE IN APRIL
The French under General Nivelle continued their victorious advance on the Soissons-Craonne line April 18, crushing the German resistance along a front of thirty-five miles, and raising the total of German prisoners taken during the movement to 17,000. Seventy-five guns, including a number of heavy siege pieces, were captured.
CHAPTER XXX
GEN. PERSHING'S OWN STORY
American Operations in France Described by the Commander-in- Chief—Glowing Tribute to His Men.
A remarkable summary of the operations of the American Expeditionary Force in France from the date of its organization, May 26, 1917, to the signing of the armistice November 11, 1918, was cabled to the Secretary of War by General Pershing on November 20, 1918. His account of the active military operations was as follows:
COMBAT OPERATIONS
During our period of training in the trenches some of our divisions had engaged the enemy in local combats, the most important of which was Seicheprey by the 26th on April 20, 1918, in the Toul sector, but none had participated in action as a unit. The 1st Division, which had passed through the preliminary stages of training, had gone to the trenches for its first period of instruction at the end of October, and by March 21, when the German offensive in Picardy began, we had four divisions with experience in the trenches, all of which were equal to any demands of battle action. The crisis which this offensive developed was such that our occupation of an American sector must be postponed.