Points that had fallen to the Germans—Fossoy, La Chapelle, St. Agnan, Bois de Condé, Crezancy, and Mézy—were recovered with French aid. By 4 o'clock in the afternoon the Germans had been driven to the railroad track skirting the south bank of the Marne. There they took up positions; but there was no pause for them. The American gunners got the range of the landing places, where the Germans had stretched cables by which they hauled boats across the swollen stream, and there was no retreat in the way they had come. The Americans pursued them behind the railroad embankment. Slowly the graycoats were forced back. Some of them swam the Marne to safety, but their number was few. Many of them were drowned in the river. The Americans in front were on open ground, making the best use of whatever shelter offered. German forces were on the hills on the opposite side of the river, showering high explosives and gas shells upon them, but the Americans went forward, nevertheless, with gas masks adjusted, and crawling at times for a considerable distance on all fours. In this way they advanced bit by bit, and when they came within range close enough they drove the enemy back.
The Germans retained some precarious positions south of the Marne; but they were completely swept back across the river between Château-Thierry and Jaulgonne. They were driven where they were before the advance began. They vented their wrath the next morning by sending thousands of high explosive and noxious gas shells into the American lines. They had set out to swing their line northeast of Château-Thierry; but it still swung northwest, and presently it was to swing much farther back.
The American losses were serious, as was to be expected in the most important action in which the Americans had yet engaged. In return, however, they exacted a toll from the Germans that made their losses seem light. It was estimated that they killed, wounded, or captured 20,000 of the enemy. Hundreds of the latter were slain while retreating across the Marne. One battalion of the 6th German Grenadiers, according to prisoners, was annihilated in the woods, and of the other battalion only one company survived. The south bank of the Marne was lined with German dead, while in the woods south of Mézy, through which the Germans advanced and retreated, 5,000 enemy dead lay, some bodies three and four deep where they had dared, in close formation, the American machine guns.
There were sporadic counterattacks, which were readily repulsed by the Americans and French. The lines wavered back and forth, and then came a sudden shift of the pivot of the entire German action in the Soissons-Rheims salient. The Marne was no longer an object to be gained, but rather a danger to flee from.
CHAPTER LV
FORWARD WITH FOCH
American forces mingled with French troops on all sides of the German salient when General Foch struck its western side. In proportion to the combined number of French, British and Italian troops, they were not many. For that reason their achievements stood out with greater distinction; inferiority of numbers made their exploits conspicuous. They were with the French south of Soissons, on the southwest corner of the salient, west of Château-Thierry, along the Marne east of that town, and east of Rheims, the latter outside the salient proper. They were thus in the full swing of the Foch counteroffensive which finally was to crumble the salient to extinction and bring them along its top at the Vesle River.
No clearly defined picture can be drawn of their share in this advance. Their operations blended too intimately with the French movements. Here and there the situation in certain areas disclosed Americans to be acting on their own initiative. But in the main it was a Franco-American operation. The movements of each were interdependent. The advance of both progressed with the uniformity of a curved chain dragged from each end along a highway. There were dents and wrigglings in the chain at times; but it moved on.
The advance lent a significance to the earlier operations of the Americans northwest of Château-Thierry, when they straightened their line by extending it to the outskirts of Torcy, capturing Belleau Wood, Bouresches and Vaux. From this line, along a front of forty kilometers to Soissons, the attack was made at 4.45 on the morning of July 18, 1918. The perspective is too long for its development to be described with clearness. Only glimpses can be obtained of the American participation at points where there were eyewitnesses.
What was clear was that in their initial effort the Americans carried all before them. By the late afternoon they had proceeded so fast that cavalry was thrown into action. By night American headquarters—a movable fixture that day—were well inside territory held by the Germans in the morning. The line, in short, before the day was over, had advanced at varying depths, the most being ten kilometers, or a little over six miles, and the day's captures by the Americans embraced a number of towns, over 4,000 prisoners, fifty cannon, thousands of machine guns, vast quantities of munitions and stores, and airplanes.