AROUND CHÂTEAU-THIERRY

Meantime, some distance to the left of this American sector at Cantigny, the German thrust between Noyon and Rheims had cut across the Aisne, took a westward turn and enveloped Soissons, proceeded south to the Marne between ChÂteau-Thierry and Dormans on a six-mile front, and swung a couple of miles along the Marne beyond Dormans. Their advance having progressed thus far, the Germans on the Marne and on the west of the salient they had formed in the Allied line found themselves facing another American army.

The narrative of American operations in France thus turns from recording local exploits such as that at Cantigny and the trench adventures that marked the inconsequential warfare along the American sectors east of St. Mihiel. It becomes merged in the story of major operations, with the Americans in the thick of a great battle, fighting shoulder to shoulder with the French on their left, and joined on their right by more French, aided by British and Italian troops. American forces in great numbers became a big factor in arresting the southward sweep of the Germans across the Marne, and in checking a plunge westward, both operations aiming at a triumphant march on Paris. Just as the Americans had aided in stopping the Germans from reaching Amiens, a pivotal point in the British lines, so did they save Paris. At the tail end of the third phase of his descent on the French capital via the Marne, the German was slowly beginning to realize that the despised Americans had become a leading factor in the war.

There was an imperative call for American aid to reenforce the French along the Marne and on the western side of the salient. They were rushed from distant training areas, or from the quiet sectors in Lorraine and Alsace or from the American positions round Cantigny and Montdidier and about Amiens on the British front, and once on the scene they immediately plunged into action to check the German drive. How one American unit hastened to fill the breach and stem the Teutonic tide was described by Junius B. Wood as typical of the expedition with which other detachments moved into the battle zone:

"One evening at 7 o'clock orders came over the long-distance telephone from headquarters to move. At 10 o'clock the same night camions were rumbling up, and after all the men had found places, started toward the fateful Marne. Before daylight they had crossed a goodly part of France and reached the reserve areas. The camions started back, while soldiers and officers stretched out along the roadside to snatch a few hours of sleep. The next night they marched into the support positions. A few more hours of sleep, and they went directly into the battle. In less than twelve hours telephone wires were strung and communication established in their territory. Every part of the organization from commanding officers to privates were working perfectly. Supplies were coming up over the roads in the rear. Ambulances were carrying back the wounded, while the trucks which had carried up ammunition with which to sow the seeds of death returned to aid refugees and thus helping to save the living.

"Along the Paris road the dust hung like a fog over the companies marching forward to take their turn at fighting and other companies returning for a few hours of sleep. Out of the brown clouds dashed staff motor cars and ambulances disregarding all speed laws. Trains of trucks passed the horse-drawn batteries moving into position. Flashes and ear-splitting crashes came from batteries put in position just far enough off the roads to avoid the traffic. Men were cooking beside the guns, and others, oblivious to the suffocating dust, were sleeping in the midst of the noise and turmoil. All moved according to a well-ordered system.

"While the guns were barking under the shade trees at the roadside stolid ox teams with carts loaded with household possessions were moving to the rear. It seemed as if the guns with their muzzles pointing the other way were holding back the invaders until those fleeing fugitives should again reach safety. Other batteries were hastily unlimbered in fields and orchards where plows and harrows had been abandoned only a few hours previously by the peaceful peasants."

The Americans entered the line in the midst of a battle which raged over a hilly country and which shifted back and forth like a maelstrom. Crops were growing and there were no prepared trenches. The first unit on the scene was a machine-gun battalion, which rode on trucks throughout the night of Friday, May 30, 1918, and arrived the next morning, going into position to guard the bridges across the Marne at ChÂteau-Thierry. Another unit arrived on Sunday morning, June 2, 1918, and before 4 o'clock the same afternoon had been in three fights, in one of which it drove the Germans back two kilometers on a front of four kilometers.

The beginning of June, 1918, in fact, which marked the entrance of the Americans into the battle line of the Soissons-Marne-Rheims salient, found them in the thick of the conflict almost before they had breathing time to dig in.

The Germans at once locked horns with them at Neuilly, ChÂteau-Thierry, and Jaulgonne. When the Americans appeared near the first-named place, the Germans were trying to enter Neuilly Wood. They had succeeded in entering the village of Neuilly-la-Poterie near by and found the adjacent woods, occupied by the French and Americans, a stumblingblock to their advance. The American machine gunners mowed down the advancing enemy battalions and later supported the French infantry in a counterattack which forced the enemy to retire beyond the northern edge of the wood. On June 31, 1918, the Germans made another attempt to drive the Americans out. They concentrated large forces and advanced in massed formation. Again they were met by a rain of machine-gun fire, which smothered a similar hail of bullets the Germans had shed on the Americans from hastily erected machine-gun positions on the skirts of the wood. The Americans advanced before the Germans reached their line, engaged them at close quarters with the bayonet, broke their formations and sent them fleeing in confusion to the ruined village beyond the wood whence they had come.

While these attacks were under way American and French troops on the Marne near Jaulgonne, east of ChÂteau-Thierry, were engaged in repelling a battalion of Germans who had forced a passage of the river at that point. In a sharp combat, marked by the fierceness of their machine-gun fire, the French and Americans, fighting side by side, almost wiped out the German forces which reached the southern bank of the Marne. Most of the survivors were rounded up in small groups and captured. They numbered a hundred. A second German attack was launched later with shock troops, who also gained a footing on the southern bank, but again their stay was not long. The footbridge on which they crossed was swept by American machine-gun fire, and rushes of American infantry forced the enemy back.

The most notable of these preliminary contacts the Germans had with the Americans on the southern arc of the salient was at ChÂteau-Thierry. The battalion of American machine gunners already mentioned, which had been posted on May 31, 1918, to guard the river bridges at that town, found the Germans already in the northern outskirts. The town lies on both sides of the Marne, which is there spanned by a big bridge. A little to the northward a canal runs parallel to the river and is crossed by a smaller bridge. The Germans had made their way into the northern part of the town through a gap they had driven in the Allied lines to the left, and began to stream through the streets toward the bridge, intending to establish themselves firmly on the southern bank and capture the town.

They reckoned without the American machine gunners, who had been suddenly thrown into ChÂteau-Thierry with French colonial troops. The Americans immediately took over the defense of the river bank, especially the approaches to the bridge. They began operations by poking the muzzles of their weapons through broken walls, bushes, and holes knocked in the sides of the houses. The guns were skillfully hidden and the Germans were unable to locate them. The latter wavered under the American fire, their advance was brought to a standstill, and a counterattack by the French colonials drove them from the town. As usual the Germans attempted a counterassault. The next night, June 1, 1918, taking advantage of the darkness, they stole toward the large bridge, in which direction they penetrated through the western suburbs to the banks of the Marne. In order to mask their movements, they made use of smoke bombs, which made the aim of the machine guns very difficult. At the same time the town underwent an extremely violent bombardment. A surprise, however, was in store for them. They were already crossing the bridge, evidently believing themselves masters of both banks, when a thunderous explosion blew the center of the bridge and a number of Germans with it into the river. Those who reached the southern bank were immediately captured. Holding the south end of the bridge, the Americans covered the withdrawal of troops across the bridge before its destruction, and although under severe fire themselves, kept all the approaches to the bank under a rain of bullets, which nullified all the subsequent efforts of the enemy to cross the river. Every attempt of the Germans to elude the vigilance of the Americans resulted in disaster to them. The upshot was that the Germans abandoned the occupation of the northern part of ChÂteau-Thierry, which American machine guns made untenable, and it became a part of no-man's-land. The Americans altogether made a brilliant defense of the town. A French staff officer described it as one of the finest feats of the war. There was little left of the town itself. It was shot to pieces and became a pile of bricks and stones.