Such was the opening of their attempt to overwhelm the allied forces on the Marne and march on Paris.
On the morning of the 15th we heard the tempest of battle on every side, and stood ready to take our part in this great adventure of arms.
I, for one, forgot all else but that a great battle was impending in which Americans were to have a part, and I had an intense desire to acquit myself bravely as my forbears always had in the supreme tests of battle. A war, too, which was to make the world safe for the principle for which my father had fought in the Civil War and which was to bring, it was devotedly hoped, a reign of righteousness and peace for all the world.
While the sound of battle was heard on every side, we waited orders to move. The order came at midnight, during a heavy downpour of rain; and it was dark as dark could be when it came, and the march at last began. But every man knew his place in line and had his equipments ready at hand.
We silently crossed the river without opposition, and were in the northern half of the city which for six weeks had been in the hands of the invaders. Daylight revealed columns of French and American troops marching through its ruined streets. The men were jubilant with expectation. On their faces shone the light of youthful enthusiasm. The sharp report of rifles and the rat, tat, tat of machine-guns, mingled with the roar of artillery, assailed our ears.
“We’ve caught them on the fly,” said one of our enthusiastic boys, “and we are after them!”
“It looks to me,” said another, hopefully, “that we have got our innings, and that we are going to make a home run.”
The city showed signs of a hurried and disorderly departure of the usually methodical Germans. Here and there in the streets was a German helmet and, occasionally a dead man whom they could not stop to bury. There were barricades built up with fragments of masonry, benches, tables, wheelbarrows, unhinged doors, mattresses and even a cradle and bird cage. The houses were only shells, with windows broken, holes gaping in their walls, doors wrenched from their hinges. The beautiful furnishings had all been destroyed or wantonly ruined.
The cellars showed signs of having been largely occupied as places of refuge. Mattresses, benches and chairs and cooking utensils were collected there.
Some of the inhabitants were still there, clinging with French tenacity to their ruined homes. They were principally old women and men and children. During the six weeks of German occupancy they had lived on vegetables dug at night from abandoned gardens, and on goat’s flesh and one cow that had been killed by our gun fire.