FIGHTING THROUGH FORESTS

Now came a bitter struggle for the possession of Epieds and Trugny, to the east and southeast of Bezu-St. Germain. Below Trugny lay Barbillon Wood, also an objective of the attackers. The Germans viciously defended these points. A give-and-take battle raged round the two towns all day on July 23, 1918; but in the region of Barbillon Wood the Germans fell back, burning depots and ammunition and supply dumps, and evacuating many farms which had been strongly fortified for defense. The fighting extended still farther east in front of Jaulgonne and Charteves. The American progress here was made in the face of most obstinate resistance by the Germans, who fought every foot. Even when making steps backward, they endeavored to render the American progress costly by leaving behind German machine gunners cleverly concealed in nests. These gunners were not told that the main body was withdrawing, and were left at the mercy of the advance. Several of them when captured expressed unfeigned surprise when told that their comrades had withdrawn.

ChÂtelet Forest was another stumblingblock. Several sallies into these woods having proved abortive, the French swung round to the north, and the Americans to the south. Machine guns and American light artillery played on the woods, and the Germans were finally uprooted from their main ambushes there. It was one of the positions the Germans had chosen for the stand after their withdrawal from the Marne.

The terrain was mostly woody in the area above the Marne where the Franco-American line had reached. The fighting was therefore pursued in the midst of concealed antagonists. In the forest of Barbillon the Germans had a machine gun screened every ten yards of their front. Their hidden artillery impeded American reenforcements. The attackers had to beat their way into the woods, encountering rocky ledges that formed excellent nests for enemy machine guns. The German positions were excellent for defensive fighting; but with the slow but sure closing in of their western flank, and a like movement proceeding east of them, the woods would become traps if they retained them. They did not retain them. They merely fought spitefully to impede the Franco-American progress and safeguard the retreat of their main forces out of the dangerous Marne pocket.

They desperately clung to the region of Epieds and Trugny. At this point German infantry, which had been pushed back, were thrust forward again to check the Franco-American advance from the southwest toward FÈre-en-Tardenois.

"The Germans," reported Reuter's correspondent with the American troops, "fought well and checked the advance for some thirty-six hours, and three times wrested the village of Epieds from their determined American opponents. In the meantime the village grew constantly smaller under the ceaseless bombardment from both sides and finally disappeared, not even a large pile of bricks being left behind.

"When the village disappeared the Germans were in possession. The Americans, tired of the ceaseless ebb and flow of the fighting there, had taken the slopes on either flank and forced the Germans to make their final massed attack into the ruins of the village.

"Meanwhile the Allied guns had been brought up beyond the crest of the hill, and as soon as the Germans took possession of the village they concentrated a terrific fire upon it until the place smoked with its own red dust as though on fire. When the guns ceased firing there were no Germans left to capture, or even to bury.

"At the edge of the wood beyond Trugny the German machine guns, stationed ten yards apart, held up the advance a little longer. Making a feint frontal attack, however, the Americans crept, Indian fashion, around the flanks and captured all the guns.

"Afterward the pace of the advance quickened. All the high ground north of Epieds was taken and the line carried beyond Courpoil." A series of like local actions brought the Franco-American line by July 25, 1918, well beyond the foregoing points and into the region of the FÈre and Riz forests, where the Germans had retreated from Epieds. They were dense woods of poplar and oak rising amid thick underbrush. Hidden among the clustered foliage, German machine gunners desperately contended for every inch of ground before surrendering it. They vainly tried to hold the French and Americans in the southern part of the Riz forest with the object of saving huge supplies gathered there. An examination of the woods afterward showed hundreds of tons of ammunition for big German guns, piled six feet high in rows a hundred yards long for some distances. This ammunition had been stored there to be used in the advance on Paris.

By a flanking movement above the forest of FÈre the Americans carried the village of Beuvardes, making their line run from that point through the northern part of FÈre forest to Le Charmel and through the Riz forest southeast to above Dormans. Le Charmel, which lies on the Jaulgonne road, with a wooded hill on each side, changed hands twice before taken by the Americans. The Germans had strong machine gun positions both in the village and on the hills. Their fire raked the Americans when they charged the village and compelled them to retire. Later, assisted by comrades from the two forests, the Americans overcame the Germans, who withdrew from Le Charmel slowly and stubbornly.

By July 27, 1918, the Franco-American forces had driven the Germans almost entirely out of the wooded area they had been so obstinately defending. The pressure was constantly maintained toward the road junction of FÈre-en-Tardenois, the Franco-American objective, and thither the pursuers progressed through the remainder of the dense woods and over rain-soaked fields and hills on their outskirts.

In the course of this forest fighting the troops were warned to watch for Germans wearing American or French uniforms, a device they had successfully practiced. Rushing across an open place in the forest when German nests had been discovered, a German, speaking perfect English, called to American machine gunners:

"Don't shoot. There are Americans in that thicket."

The Americans were at the edge of the forest, firing into a wood opposite. They ceased when the detachment appeared. The detachment entered a forest to the right of the Americans, and in a few minutes a hail of machine-gun bullets came from that direction. The Americans realized that they had been duped, and turned their machine guns upon the impostors.

On July 28, 1918, the Americans were on the south bank of the Ourcq. This river, intended by the Germans to be a halting line, but which they could not hold, marked a notable point in the American progress from the banks of the Marne. Foch's forward movement from the west and southwest had been proceeding simultaneously and now became merged along this river into the movement up from the south.

American participation from the west had been less conspicuous; but American troops left their mark, whatever their zone of operations, and in this area they made their presence painfully felt south of Soissons. At the beginning of the western advance, east of Vierzy and northeast of Chaudon, they encountered the pick of the German shock troops after fighting for thirty hours. The result was that the youthful Americans, meeting the kaiser's best, who were fresh and in the pink of condition, themselves essayed the task of becoming shock troops. They had reached their objectives, a varying number of miles eastward, and were consolidating their positions when the shock came. Against one American unit two German shock divisions were hurled; against another came the famous Prussian Guards. The Germans had machine guns mounted on wheels and rolled them to the edge of the woods where the fighting occurred. These guns shot explosive bullets at the Americans. Shock troops came to close grips with shock troops—and the Franco-American advance was not only sustained but extended.