VAUX AND HAMEL

July, 1918, was a red-letter month in the annals of American belligerency on the European battle field. Events of historic moment, in which American soldiers, fighting shoulder to shoulder with the French, were irresistible protagonists, crowded one upon another. They had got into their stride; they were seasoned and in the pink of condition; no German heroics could withstand them.

As a sort of prelude to their memorable participation in General Foch's offensive stroke of July 18, 1918, the American troops undertook a little offensive of their own to the west of ChÂteau-Thierry, and accomplished their object with devastating results to the enemy.

The investment and capture of Belleau Wood to the northwest had completed a chain of operations designed to secure the American positions. But there remained an awkward loop or sag which it was deemed desirable to remove. Its straightening involved the occupation of a little village called Vaux, with its tap on the main railroad line into ChÂteau-Thierry, the capture of a knoblike crest of ground designated as Hill 192, on the edge of Clerembauts Wood, and also the routing of Germans from a sizable cluster of trees, midway between the two other points and known as the Bois de la Roche. The front of the attack was about two and a half miles, stretching from the village of Triangle, then north to the Bois Clerembauts, across the Paris road, and running south of Vaux. Vaux was an important objective, being considered vital to the Germans for holding ChÂteau-Thierry.

The Americans went over Vaux and established themselves just beyond the northern edge of the village, taking in the same rush the hills just to the west of Vaux. This eliminated the German wedge almost completely, the only remaining portion being at the wood of Clerembauts, where the Germans were in a pocket.

A merciless, methodical artillery fire was leveled at the German positions on the morning of July 1, 1918. American guns, big and little, hurled torrents of high explosive and gas shells on the village with a deadly accuracy of aim. By noon Vaux was on fire. Every house had been hit at least once. A shell would fall on some little habitation, a cloud of yellow smoke would arise, and the house was no more. The American guns continued to belch all day with an unemotional, matter-of-fact regularity from the depths of a score of leafy woods.

In the evening the infantry advanced. They swept through the enemy lines and, had their object been to continue the advance, they could have done so with the greatest ease, as virtually everything before them had been cleared.

"The advance started at 6 o'clock, and at 6.25 the first of our men entered the village of Vaux. By 6.40 they had gone through the wood, gaining all their objectives. Our stormy petrels took Vaux in clean-up style. Squads were ready with their hand grenades to clear the cellars, but many of these had been closed by our fire, and the Germans had been buried in them. From others the Germans came out and surrendered. In some there was difficulty, and in that case our men threw in hand grenades in great numbers. Generally, if there were any Germans left, they surrendered.

"Four hours after the men went over the top American telephone lines were working from Vaux back to our headquarters. By 7.30 our ambulances were running into the wrecked village. "A wounded German brought in about 10 o'clock said that in the morning there had been 4,000 Germans in the village, but after the barrage started some had been withdrawn, leaving only those who could be sheltered in sixty-eight caves in the village. He said the cave in which he took refuge was wrecked by an American shell and that he lay wounded for six hours until the Americans came in."

For adroitness, dispatch, thoroughness, and sustained teamwork, the attack on Vaux was an undoubted triumph for American arms, though a small one. Each man moved to the particular post in the town to which he had been assigned to perform his allotted task. None failed, and the operation was completed with systematic smoothness; as though in a twinkling, it was all over.

With Vaux and the Bois de la Roche in their hands, the Americans took their machine guns to the edge of the wood, expecting a counterattack. It duly came, the Germans launching a fresh regiment upon the lost positions; but an hour later all was calm—the regiment was no more. A second counterattack broke in the small hours of July 3, 1918, accompanied by a heavy bombardment. The enemy lost heavily without regaining a foot of the ground won by the Americans. The Germans advanced in close formation from their trenches without being checked. In some cases they were allowed to approach close to the American line. Then the American gunners, from their hidden nests, mowed down the enemy ranks with showers of bullets.

Later came a fight for the possession of a hill known as 204, situated between Vaux and the Bois de la Roche. The Germans held it and the French, in essaying the task of wresting it from them, invited American detachments to lend a hand. The hill stood just outside the American sector and commanded ChÂteau-Thierry. Volunteers were many; most of them were new arrivals who had never faced the Germans. Practically none had been under fire. They were waiting their chance, some swimming in the Marne, others catching baseball, when the call came, and the response was five times the number needed.

American soldiers near a barricade in the Rue du Pont, ChÂteau-Thierry. The Germans were driven from the town in the First Battle of the Marne, 1914, and again in the Second Battle of the Marne, 1918.