MARSHAL FOCH
During the first half of 1918, while grave events were taking place on other parts of the front, the Argonne remained quiet. The battle, however, spread from point to point, and the Argonne front in its turn was again set ablaze on the date fixed by Foch in his plan for the great offensive which was destined to bring the Germans to their knees.
After the Allied counter-offensive of July 18 on the Aisne front (see Volume I: “The Second Battle of the Marne”), which drove the Germans back to the Vesle, the Allies were forced to mark time on the centre of the front.
The battle shifted to the wings. Offensive followed offensive with unfailing regularity, first on the left (the Franco-British offensive of August 8), then in Artois (the offensive of August 20), and lastly against the whole of the Hindenburg line, which the Allies attacked on September 1.
The Germans were already greatly shaken, but Foch gave them no respite, and to prevent them recovering he redoubled his attacks.
An offensive movement on both wings began: on the left (in Flanders) the Belgian, French and British armies, under the command of King Albert, attacked simultaneously with the Fourth French Army under Gouraud and the First American Army under Pershing on the right.
As a prelude to taking its place in the line for the great offensive, the American Army had already fought the brilliant action which, on September 12, reduced the St. Mihiel salient. (See Volume 2: “The Battle of St. Mihiel.”)
This operation was only just over when the main body of the American army was moved very rapidly from the Meuse to the Argonne, to the positions assigned to General Pershing in the Allied plan of campaign.
This very important movement, effected without a hitch between September 4 and 24, involved the displacement of enormous forces; eleven French divisions, constituting the Second Army, were replaced by fifteen divisions of the First American Army, which thus held the whole Verdun front from the Aisne to the Moselle, between La Harazée and Pont-à-Mousson.