AT SEICHEPREY AND XIVRAY
The Germans had reached the conclusion that the Americans must be taught a lesson. The latter were making a disquieting impression elsewhere on the western front in cooperating with Anglo-French forces who were resisting the German advance. Moreover, the Americans in their own sectors showed an unseemly enterprise and eagerness to meet the kaiser's hosts at close quarters, and even to hold them in small esteem. Besides, the people at home must be persuaded that the hordes of untrained and raw Americans who were spreading along the western front were negligible and despised factors as belligerents, and the best way to drive this conclusion home to the German people was to give the Americans a sound thrashing. Such a disciplinary measure, the German mind reasoned, would also have the effect of discouraging the Americans from continuing to come to the rescue of their sorely pressed Allies.
The American sector running eastward of the famous salient of St. Mihiel was chosen as the location of the castigation. In this sector lay the village of Seicheprey among rolling hills, overlooking a winding valley that runs to the northeast. The German positions were on high ground, commanding the Allied trenches, and directly opposite them, behind the American line, Seicheprey nestled on the southwestern slope of a steep hill some 900 feet high. On the right, the hill was approachable on a gradual incline, the greater part of which is covered by a small rectangular grove called the Wood of Remières. Here the American line joined the French.
The front of the attack made by the Germans ran something under two miles from Seicheprey to the Remières Wood. Their object appeared to be threefold, apart from the ultimate aim to discourage the Americans and convince the German people that the United States was a poor antagonist. One was to test the American strength and determine whether the Americans, still unseasoned, as measured by the hardened condition of the other Allied troops, after their four years of war, would brave heavy shell fire, followed by strong infantry attacks. The second was to widen the base of the St. Mihiel salient, which was too narrow to hold with security. The third was to drive a wedge between the American and French lines.
The assault came at sunrise on April 20. An all—night bombardment, which sent a deluge of shells, many of them of poison gas, into the American positions, preceded it. A German barrage was launched; the Americans met it by a counterbarrage. In short, the regulation artillery curtains were swept across the battle zone, under which the opposing forces tried conclusions.
On a front extending for a mile and three-quarters the enemy sent a force of 3,000 men, preceded by picked storm troops, who advanced in three columns. They had been specially trained for the operation and greatly outnumbered the resisting Americans; they carried rations and intrenching tools, indicating that the aim was to occupy the American trenches—if taken—for a long period. On the left and in the center the assault was repelled, but on the right the assailants succeeded in occupying Remières Wood, whose eastern edge was a short distance behind the American line. The Germans pursued their customary tactics of "infiltration," that is, of gradual progress in small groups, supported by quick-firers along the line of entry made in the Allied position with the object of taking the American center in the rear. Protected by trees and favored by the character of the terrain, the Germans were so far successful that by night they had reached the crest of the hill flanked by Remières Wood, and delivered a heavy attack on Seicheprey.
The Germans carried the village, but only after furious hand-to-hand fighting. They entered it in the belief that the Americans had gone, and with good reason, since liquid fire, gas, and other devices of frightfulness had been used to clear the village. But some Americans had remained, and they attacked the Germans with hand grenades, killing many of them. The Americans only fell back when they were greatly outnumbered, after making a stubborn defense. German airmen poured machine-gun fire upon them; but the antiaircraft batteries came into play and American airmen took the air, bringing down two of the enemy planes and dispersing the others. Before retiring the Americans fought for every inch of the way, yielding slowly, and pouring a deadly machine-gun, rifle, and automatic fire into the advancing enemy.
The Germans were not permitted to hold either Seicheprey or the Remières Wood. Without a moment's delay the Americans and French organized a counterattack and drove them out of the village.
It was found that the retreating Germans had set traps there in the form of boxes containing high explosives to which they had attached wires stretched across the streets. Some of the advancing troops stepped on the wire, causing explosions and the traps had to be removed. Before dawn of the next day the Franco-American forces had not only recovered the village but forced the enemy back to the hilltop above it.
The battle circled about the brow and slope of the hill on which Seicheprey stood and the wood of Remières at its foot. The Germans returned to the charge with forces estimated at three battalions, led by storm troops. Two hours' hard fighting followed. Finally, the Americans, supported, as before by the French from an adjoining sector, now drove the Germans down the slope into Remières Wood, already held by the foe, and fought them among the trees all the morning. Toward noon the Allies swept forward irresistibly and retook the wood completely. Fighting stubbornly, the Germans were pushed back beyond the wood's eastern fringe to their own trenches, where they endeavored to maintain themselves. But a new Franco-American advance, combined with pressure from the flank, forced them to retreat, and by evening they had retired to the original starting point, and the American line was completely reestablished.