American Soldiers in Battle
How They Repelled an Attack at Seicheprey and Fought in Picardy
[Month ended May 20, 1918]
Seicheprey, in the Toul sector, was the scene on April 20, 1918, of the most determined attack launched against the American forces in France up to that time. A German regiment, reinforced by storm troops, a total of 1,500, was hurled against the American positions on a one-mile front west of Remières Forest, northwest of Toul, after a severe bombardment of gas and high explosive shells. The Germans succeeded in penetrating the front-line trenches and taking the village of Seicheprey, but after furious hand-to-hand fighting the American troops recaptured the village and most of the ground lost in the early fighting.
Next morning, after a brief bombardment, the Americans attacked and drove the enemy out of the old outposts, which they had gained, and thus broke down an offensive which, it was believed, was intended as the beginning of a German plan to separate the Americans and the French. The French lines also were attacked, but the Germans were repulsed and the lines re-established.
The losses were the heaviest sustained by Americans since they began active warfare in France. In a dispatch to the War Department General Pershing indicated that the losses among his men were between 200 and 300. According to the German official statement 183 Americans were taken prisoner, so that the American casualties apparently came mostly under the heading of captured. Official reports of the German losses, according to a prisoner captured later, gave 600 killed, wounded, and missing.
IN THE PICARDY BATTLE
"Franco-American positions south of the Somme and on the Avre" were officially mentioned for the first time in the French War Office report of April 24, indicating that forces of the United States were there on the battlefront resisting the great German offensive. The report stated that an intense bombardment of the positions all along this front was followed by an attack directed against Hangard-en-Santerre, the region of Hailles, and Senecat Wood. The Germans were repulsed almost everywhere.
Formal announcement that American troops sent to reinforce the allied armies had taken part in the fighting was made by the War Department in its weekly review of the situation issued on April 29. "Our own forces," the statement read, "have taken part in the battle. American units are in the area east of Amiens. During the engagements which have raged in this area they have acquitted themselves well."