In the fighting round Château-Thierry a number of drafted men were thrown into action to replace other units of the established army forces. The latter were men of the regular army, the marine corps, and the old national guard. All these had previous training under arms; and many had been in actual combat in the Philippines, Haiti, Nicaragua, at Vera Cruz, or on the trek into Mexico after Villa. But the drafted men had had no such hardening prior to going into cantonments, where the training, although severe and thorough, was not acquired under conditions of actual warfare with an enemy at hand. The drafted men of the new national army nevertheless went under fire before the kaiser's picked hosts, not as raw recruits, but capable soldiers of mettle and valor. They were more undisciplined, owing to the easy nature of American life, than the young men of other nations; yet they readily accustomed themselves to discipline. They were unfamiliar with war, because of their country's immunity from its terrors; yet they were equal to the emergency when it came.
The exploits of the marine corps in their swing from the original American position to the Torcy-Bouresches-Château-Thierry line stand out in strong relief. The massed efficiency of the rest of the American forces was not the less conspicuous because of the marines' achievements. That the latter acquired a certain prominence was perhaps due to the fact that their daring and resourcefulness was never without an element of the picturesque. They were stationed at the point nearest to Paris to protect it; but they did not wait to be attacked. They chose to take their offensive, which continued on their own initiative, advancing beyond the object in view, and gained ground against determined opposition. Their bravery was tempered by judgment, and their steady progress and small losses showed that it was not marred by recklessness.
CHAPTER LIII
VAUX AND HAMEL
July, 1918, was a red-letter month in the annals of American belligerency on the European battle field. Events of historic moment, in which American soldiers, fighting shoulder to shoulder with the French, were irresistible protagonists, crowded one upon another. They had got into their stride; they were seasoned and in the pink of condition; no German heroics could withstand them.
As a sort of prelude to their memorable participation in General Foch's offensive stroke of July 18, 1918, the American troops undertook a little offensive of their own to the west of Château-Thierry, and accomplished their object with devastating results to the enemy.
The investment and capture of Belleau Wood to the northwest had completed a chain of operations designed to secure the American positions. But there remained an awkward loop or sag which it was deemed desirable to remove. Its straightening involved the occupation of a little village called Vaux, with its tap on the main railroad line into Château-Thierry, the capture of a knoblike crest of ground designated as Hill 192, on the edge of Clerembauts Wood, and also the routing of Germans from a sizable cluster of trees, midway between the two other points and known as the Bois de la Roche. The front of the attack was about two and a half miles, stretching from the village of Triangle, then north to the Bois Clerembauts, across the Paris road, and running south of Vaux. Vaux was an important objective, being considered vital to the Germans for holding Château-Thierry.
The Americans went over Vaux and established themselves just beyond the northern edge of the village, taking in the same rush the hills just to the west of Vaux. This eliminated the German wedge almost completely, the only remaining portion being at the wood of Clerembauts, where the Germans were in a pocket.
A merciless, methodical artillery fire was leveled at the German positions on the morning of July 1, 1918. American guns, big and little, hurled torrents of high explosive and gas shells on the village with a deadly accuracy of aim. By noon Vaux was on fire. Every house had been hit at least once. A shell would fall on some little habitation, a cloud of yellow smoke would arise, and the house was no more. The American guns continued to belch all day with an unemotional, matter-of-fact regularity from the depths of a score of leafy woods.
In the evening the infantry advanced. They swept through the enemy lines and, had their object been to continue the advance, they could have done so with the greatest ease, as virtually everything before them had been cleared.