The Fight for the Argonne Part 2

For two nights steady streams of French troops, ammunition wagons, guns, and army trucks had poured into Baccarat on their way to relieve the various units of the Ohio Division. Four horses, two abreast, would be hitched to an artillery wagon on which was mounted a camouflaged '75 (three-inch gun). The heavy guns were drawn by six or eight horses, two abreast, with a rider for every two horses.

The Y.M.C.A. headquarters were on the corner where the two main streets of the town crossed. One night about ten o'clock we stood on the curb watching two lines of men and wagons, one from the south and one from the west, as they came together at this corner and flowed on through the town. It was a fascinating and weird night scene. Suddenly we heard a Boche plane. When it pa.s.sed overhead it dropped a star sh.e.l.l which lighted up that whole section of the town and revealed the long lines of French infantry and artillery. The burned out sh.e.l.l dropped just across the street from us. Evidently, German spies had given notice of the movements of troops and scouting planes had come over to get information and take pictures. These were closely followed by bombing planes which tried to destroy the bridge over the Meurthe and thus hinder the movement of troops, but their bombs went wide of their mark and our anti-aircraft guns made it so hot for them that they could not get near enough to do any material damage.

Many Chinese troops in French uniforms pa.s.sed through Baccarat the next day. With military precision our boys, relieved by these French and Chinese troops, poured into the town and were quickly loaded on the troop trains.

Three days before the move a secret order had come to the chief of our "Y" division to be ready to move with the troops. Immediately all our secretaries were notified to close their huts and prepare their stock for removal. "Y" trucks were dispatched to bring the secretaries and all stock on hand in to the central warehouse. Where the hut was a tent--and four of the seventeen huts were canvas--our expert, who had traveled for years with Barnum & Bailey, went with the trucks and brought in tent and all.

The army, desiring to have the "Y" supplies and men at the front with the boys, put one or two cars on each train at our disposal. For twenty-four hours without let up the "Y" trucks, manned by a score or more of secretaries, rushed boxes of chocolate, cakes, raisins, cocoa, cigarettes, tobacco, matches, and other supplies essential to the comfort of the boys, from the warehouse to the trains.

It was an exciting game to have each car loaded when the signal to move was given. Sometimes it was a close shave, as, for instance, when our car on one train having been loaded we were offered a second car which was accepted. We worked feverishly to get it ready for the move.

It was half filled--only ten minutes remained before the train was to leave. Our big French truck was being loaded at the warehouse as fast as willing hands could throw the boxes on. Word was dispatched to rush the truck to the train--it arrived in three minutes. The train was being shifted ready for the move. Our expert driver (a racing pilot in the States) was game, and followed the train, stopping where it stopped, while the boxes fairly flew from truck to car.

Finally the French train officials ordered our truck away that the train might pull out. Our manager said, "Un minute, s'il vous plait,"

while the boxes continued to fly. The Frenchmen, becoming excited, waved their arms and cursed and threatened in their own tongue. What we could not understand did not frighten us, and the merry chase continued until, in spite of our interference, the train began to move, and with a few parting shots at the still open door, our men in the car placed them as best they could, closed the door and swung from the moving train.

It was great sport, and to hear the cheers of approval from our boys, for whom all this energy was being expended, was ample reward for our fatigue and loss of sleep.

The movement of troop trains was always a special target for Boche bombing planes, and several times during the night Fritz tried to "get" us. Each time, however, he was successfully driven off by our anti-aircraft and machine guns. Whenever we heard the planes overhead and shrapnel began to burst around us, we would scurry to cover underneath the cars, which gave us protection from the falling pieces of shrapnel and the machine-gun bullets.

Troop trains had a never waning interest for civilian and soldier alike. The French freight cars are about half the size of our American cars. The box cars were filled with horses and men. The horses were led up a gangplank to the door in the center of the car and backed toward each end of the car with their heads facing each other. Four horses abreast, making eight in the car, completely filled it, leaving only a four-foot alleyway between them, where the men in charge of the horses made themselves as comfortable as circ.u.mstances permitted.

Sometimes the men were crowded so tight into the cars that they could neither sit nor lie down. Usually, however, they had more room, and in every open doorway they sat with their feet hanging outside. A jollier bunch of fellows never donned uniform.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN AERIAL BOMB (Large)]

The flat-cars were loaded with gun carriages, ammunition wagons, and field kitchens. On one car of every train were three mounted machine guns with their crews, in readiness for any daring Boche plane that might swoop down on them. Most of the trains that traveled by day were camouflaged with branches of green leaves broken from trees or bushes.

When the last train had departed at three o'clock in the morning, we had a jollification banquet of canned fruit and fish with bread and coffee, first having gone in noisy procession through all the sleeping quarters and routed out all who were s.n.a.t.c.hing a "wink of sleep."

On the day previous Armstrong went ahead with two of our canteen workers, O'Connor and Baldwin, and a camionette load of supplies and cocoa and set up a temporary canteen, ready to welcome the troops when they arrived at Ravigny. Dr. Anderson in the Ford Sedan also went ahead to choose suitable headquarters and a warehouse in which to store our fifteen carloads of supplies.

A "Y" MOTOR CONVOY

At eleven in the forenoon, after spending the morning packing and loading, our convoy started. All drivers knew the route to Ravigny, to which point all troop trains had been dispatched under sealed orders.

First in line were our pilots in an Indian motorcycle and sidecar.

They carried our official pa.s.ses which they presented to each guard en route. Then after all had pa.s.sed they proceeded to the next guard.

Second in line was a Ford touring car with our chief of transportation and other officials. Next came a camionette loaded with food supplies and cooking equipment, and after it the Renault truck (the writer driving) loaded with office supplies, cash boxes, and personal baggage. Last of all was a big three-ton truck with a miscellaneous load and trailing a small truck loaded with garage tools. This was our traveling repair shop in charge of our mechanician. The rest of the staff with their personal baggage went by train.

Ravigny is a small town but an important railroad center from which troop trains were re-routed to various points on the front line. Our division was ordered to proceed to Riccicourt, a deserted and partly destroyed village about twelve miles west of Verdun and about five miles south of Avoncourt, where our boys went "over the top." The women canteen workers, much to their disappointment, were ordered by the colonel to remain at Ravigny, where they could get accommodations and be saved the danger and distress of the battlefield.

At Riccicourt officers and men were billeted in every building that afforded any protection from wind or rain. The ma.s.s of troops, however, were on the move and bivouacked or quickly set up their dog-tents, wherever the order to "fall out" was given. Every road leading to Avoncourt was filled with the motor transportation of many divisions. Heavy rains at times made the roads impa.s.sable, but in some way traffic was maintained.

The Y.M.C.A. workers with the 37th Division were the first on the field. They were the farthest advanced; they had the largest stock of supplies and the most workers of any organization in that sector at the beginning of the drive. From this center a supply station was established at Avoncourt, where hot chocolate was served day and night to the men as they were going to and from the line of battle.

Hot chocolate and supplies in large quant.i.ties were also furnished free to the field-hospitals.

All secretaries who could possibly be spared were dispatched with packs on their backs, bulging with chocolate and tobacco for the men actually on the firing line. As these secretaries trudged past the long lines of soldiers waiting to "go into action" they would be greeted with a chorus of "Three cheers for the 'Y'"--"You can't lose the Y Men," etc.

When in answer to the requests, "Can't you sell us a cake of chocolate or a pack of Camels?" it was explained, "We can't carry enough for all, and these are for the wounded and the men on the firing line,"

there came invariably the enthusiastic reply, "That's right--they need it more than we do."

CHAPTER III

OUR INVINCIBLES

Twenty years to make a soldier! Well, that depends upon the kind of a soldier you want. There were two kinds in the Argonne Forest from the latter part of September to November in that last year of the great war.

Four long dreadful years the Forest had been the impregnable stronghold of the Kaiser's minions. The last word in the perfection of trench warfare had been spoken by them. The most elaborate preparations for the housing of their men and officers had been made; dugouts of every description, from the temporary "hole in the ground"

with a wooden door and a "cootie" bunk to the palatial suite sixty feet underground with cement stairs and floors, and with bathrooms, officers and lounging quarters, all electrically lighted and well heated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MEMORY SKETCH OF A SECTOR OF THE BATTLE FIELD 1918]

Machine gun nests had been planted in every conceivable point of vantage from a camouflaged bush on the hillside to the concealed "lookout" in the tallest treetop. Cannon of every caliber had been placed throughout the woods and under the lea of each protecting hill or cliff. A system of narrow-gauge railroads sent its spurs into every part of the Forest, delivering ammunition to the guns and supplies to the men, even connecting by tunnel with some of the largest dugouts.

The Boche had not held this stronghold undisturbed. The traditions of the battlefield, pa.s.sed from lip to lip, told of numerous and costly offensives by the French and English, but always the same story of failure to take or hold the Forest.

When the American offensive was ready to be launched the French were eager to gamble, first, that our dough-boys could not take the "untakable," and second, that if by any miraculous procedure they succeeded in breaking the German line, they could not _hold_ what they had taken. This did not mean that they doubted the courage or the ability of our men, but that they did have knowledge of the impregnable nature of the German stronghold.

On that eventful morning near the end of September, the rainy season having started and the mud of the Argonne vying with the mud of Flanders, our guns began to cough and roar. For three terrific hours they spoke the language of the bottomless pit and caused the very foundations of the earth itself to quiver. Germans taken prisoner by our men afterward acknowledged that they had never heard anything so terrifying in their lives.

Having sent over their letter of introduction, our boys followed in person with a shout and a dash. Over the top and through the wire entanglements of No Man's Land they fairly leaped their way. Hundreds of tons of barbed wire had been woven and interwoven between posts driven into the ground. These posts were in rows and usually stood about three feet out of the ground. The rows were four feet apart.

Then through the trenches of the German front line they swept, and out across the open country which lay between them and the Forest. The marks of the four years' conflict were everywhere visible: the blackened and splintered remains of trees, the gra.s.s-covered sh.e.l.l-holes, the ruined towns and the wooden crosses, silent markers of the tombs of the dead. Besides these were the fresh holes in the fields and on the hillside where our guns had literally blasted the whole face of the ground.

The sh.e.l.l-holes ranged from the washtub size made by the 75's to the great fissure-torn holes made by the big naval guns, and which would make an ample cellar for an ordinary dwelling house. I have seen horses which had fallen into these great holes shot and covered over because they could not be gotten out without a derrick.

In the Forest proper our boys encountered machine-gun nests, artillery pieces of every caliber, and the Boche with whom the woods were infested. Besides the opposition of an active enemy, were the natural barriers of deep ravines, stony ridges and cliffs, and in many places an almost impa.s.sable barrier of dense underbrush and fallen limbs and trees.

Through all of this, however, our boys pushed that first great day, ignoring every danger which they were not compelled to conquer in their rapid advance. When they emerged from the Forest they swept down the hillside, through the gas-filled valley, and stormed the ridges beyond. On the crest of one of these ridges was Montfaucon, a strongly fortified position, said to have been one of the observation towers of the Crown Prince during the four years of the war. Having surrounded and taken this stronghold, they swept on through the next valley and having reached their objective ahead of schedule, dug themselves in while the fire of German guns pierced and depleted their ranks.

Whatever military critics may say, our hearts thrill with pride for these heroes, who being given an objective took it with an impetuosity which caused them to even outrun their own barrage. And having taken it, to hold on for days at whatever cost until the heavy artillery could be brought up to support their line and make a new gain possible.

When the first surprise shock was over and the enemy realized that the Americans were really taking their impregnable fortifications, and opening the door for the defeat and bottling up of the whole German army, their resistance stiffened to desperation, and our boys had to literally hew their way to victory.

In reciting my experiences with the 37th Ohio N.G., Major General C.S.

Farnsworth, commanding, I am but echoing those of every other division engaged in that wonderful Argonne battle.

The tragedies of the Argonne will never be fully written or told. Men who have witnessed the butcheries of war are liable to be silent about the worst they have seen. It is the unspeakable.

"Sergeant O'Connor!"

"Here, sir," coming to salute with a snap.

"There is a machine-gun nest in the top of a big tree a mile from here on the left of the road leading over the hill. Silence it."

"Yes, sir!" again coming to salute and turning to carry out the order of his captain. He knew the danger, but executed the order.