Our Greatest Battle (The Meuse-Argonne). Frederick Palmer
fastidiously scientific and progressive superintendent of a manufacturing plant. The latest wrinkles in the development of defensive warfare were promptly applied. After each trench raid or enemy attack, weak points that had appeared were corrected. Generals who came on inspection ordered changes suggested by their study of the ground. Regiments new to a sector brought fresh ideas and industry. Work was good for German soldiers, who were kept digging and building for four years in perfecting the security of these intricate human warrens.
Any trench system, after allowing for an enemy's success in clearing the hurdle of the wire and in penetrating the trench system, and even for his successful occupation of considerable stretches of the front line, relied upon "strong points" and second lines in the maze of fortifications to make the gains futile, or only the prelude to a more costly repulse than if the attack had failed in its first stage. Let it be repeated that not one out of four of our soldiers had ever before stormed a first-class fortified line. They and their officers knew the character of its mazes only through lectures, pictures, maps, and imagination; but they were perfectly certain of one thing, and that was that their business was to clean the Germans out, and for this they were equipped with proper tools. In other words, when you saw a German emerging from a deep dugout where he had taken refuge from the bombardment, or appearing round a traverse, either kill him or gather him in.
The ardor and ferocity of our youth in a furious offensive mood was never more compelling in its results. Caution was not in our lexicon. If strong points held out, the thing was to go through them. There was no time to lose. The first wave must go on according to schedule, leaving those who followed to do the mopping up of details. Our faith was in our valor and destiny. In our progress the first-line fortifications were to be only another hurdle after the wire.
In the course of this famous day, in seeking a personal glimpse of every aspect of the action, I was at Army, Corps, and Division Headquarters as the news came in, and I was three miles beyond the trenches with our advance against the machine-gun nests. Such a morning sun as is rare in this region eventually dissipated the thick mist which had been in our favor in concealing our attack from enemy observation, and against us in preventing our observation of the movement of our own units. It kept on shining, which was still more rare, in all the genial pervading warmth which we associate with its generous habit in this season at home, until midday found the air singularly luminous—luminous for this region—and the sky a soft blue. The generals could not have asked more; and to the medical corps it meant a blessing for the wounded. Judging by the weather that ensued during the remainder of the battle, the point that the sun of the Argonne exhausted all its beneficence on the first day and had to retire behind clouds to recuperate, in order to keep up the reputation of "sunny France" for future tourist seasons, seems well taken.
Not only was the infantry advancing, but all the rest of the army, no longer obliged to court concealment under the cover of the night, had come aggressively into the open, the stealthy processes of preparation having given place to the thrill of battle joined. Where all efforts on preceding days had been directed toward a stationary theater, now all were directed to a traveling theater. A mighty organism of human and metal machinery, which had been assembling and tuning up its engines, had thrown in the clutch and was in motion.
Considering the volume of shells being fired at the Germans, the columns of motor-trucks loaded with ammunition now had an intimate appeal. The front had become a magnet drawing every thought toward it, with every waiting ambulance and vehicle expectant of an order to start forward. At the rear there was less traffic on the roads than during the period of preparation; but forward, close to the trench lines, roads that had been empty two days before were crowded. Machine-gun battalions in reserve and batteries of artillery which had carried out their assignment in the preliminary bombardment, and were moving forward to new positions where they could support the advance, were demanding right of way over divisional transport, which was clear as to its duty to keep as close to the infantry as orders would permit. The signal corps, unrolling their wires, also wanted precedence in order that division headquarters might have information; and the engineers had taken precedence over everybody with the compelling argument that unless roads were built no traffic could move forward.
It was a familiar enough picture. To the jaded observer of war every glimpse only reproduced some scene which was part of a routine of which he was so weary that it made him desire, if for no other reason, the realization of the supreme hope that this should be the final offensive of the war. The great thing, though all the equipment and all the system seemed age-old because of their associations, was that the personnel was new. A new knight had slipped into old armor, and taken up the sword from a tired if experienced hand. D'Artagnan had arrived from Gascony to add his young blade to the blades of the three Musketeers. On the part of everybody there was still the boyish enthusiasm of the beginner in a game.
Hundreds of officers who had been to staff schools, or enduring the S. O. S. in fractious impatience, now for the first time were at the front—the front of the Great War; and with them were all the men of the supply units, motor drivers, ambulance drivers, engineer battalions, military police, whose one thought was a sight of that "big show."
The French gunners looked on smiling, as a middle-aged woman smiles over the enthusiasm of the débutante. Given the hour of attack, they knew by experience how long it would be before the first wounded and the first prisoners would come down the road. Soldiers who had never seen a German at close quarters perhaps had taken the prisoners; a young intelligence officer might be having his first experience in questioning them. To the French the prisoners looked like all the "sales Boches"; but we were discovering their characteristics afresh. Later came the severely wounded on stretchers which were slipped into the ambulances which bore them away. By nine o'clock in the morning we knew that except for a few strong points which could not hold out we were through the wire and through that elaborate trench system and out in the open, and still going on.
VII
IN THE WAKE OF THE INFANTRY
A successful surprise—The importance of traffic control in maintaining the advance—The "show" in the air—How the engineers built roads—And traffic blocked them—And colonels showed the traffic police how.
The veteran accepts his long service as a guarantee of efficiency; the novice is patient under instruction and open to suggestion. Our desire to do everything in the book, our painstaking individual industry under a meticulous discipline, and our willingness as beginners to learn had served us well before the battle in the concealment of our strength and plans from the enemy. There were so many of us and we were so swift in our onset that we gave the enemy the benumbing shock which on many occasions the newcomer, springing aggressively into the arena, has inflicted by a rain of blows upon a hardened adversary who has appraised him too lightly.
If the Germans had made the most of their fortifications with their customary skill, the dam might have held against the flood; for it is the touch and go of impulse that decides in the space of a second between docile hands up begging for succor and a fury of resistance to the death. Suddenly brought to face overwhelming formations, the answering sense of self-preservation prevailed in the German trenches before the German officers and non-commissioned officers, had they been in the mood, could overcome the mass instinct of their men.
The French on our left had presumably met more resistance than we in the first-line fortifications. Their attack was doubtless more professionally skillful than ours. Had they failed, for no other reason than that they had fewer men to the mile, the cost of a repulse would have been less for them than it would have been for us. The Germans knew that the French were massing west of the Argonne, and apparently accepted their attack as serious, while they thought that we would make only a demonstration. We had been right in our anticipation that they would not consider, for one thing, another major offensive by our army feasible so soon after Saint-Mihiel; or, for another, that Marshal Foch, while he was carrying on extensive operations in northern France, would have the temerity or the forces to undertake in addition such an extensive effort as that of September 26th.
Despite