BEFORE AMIENS

The Allies' resistance to Germany's spring offensive of 1918, which aimed to reach the Channel ports and Paris, at first revealed no indication that American forces were taking part in the defense. The sweep of her first advance, begun on March 21, 1918, extended from the vicinity of Arras, on the north, to La FÈre, on the south. The latter town was near a great bend then in the western line around the wood of St. Gobain, a short distance northwest of the Chemin-des-Dames, where, as shown in the previous chapter, Americans were stationed. Hence the German attack swept within fighting distance of American arms.

The United States was in sufficient strength along the western front to make it certain that General Pershing would not let Great Britain and France bear the sole burden of meeting the German advance. But for some days the share of the American forces in the fighting was veiled in mystery. Berlin finally shed a little daylight on the subject. In its official communiquÉs of March 24 and 25, 1918, it alluded to American reserves having been thrown back on Chauny, which is eight miles west of La FÈre. These bulletins contained the following passages:

"The British Third and Fourth Armies and portions of Franco-American reserves who had been brought up were beaten, and on the line of Bapaume-Bouchavesnes and behind the Somme, between PÉronne and Ham, as well as at Chauny, were repulsed with the heaviest of losses.

"The corps of Generals von Webern and von Conte and the troops of General von Geyl, after a fierce battle, crossed the Crozat Canal.

"French, English, and American regiments which had been brought up from the southwest for a counterattack were thrown back on Chauny in a southwesterly direction."

The next day General Pershing threw further light on the mystery in a message to the War Department:

"Reference to the German communiques of the 24th and 25th regarding American troops: Two regiments of railway engineers are with the British armies involved in this battle. Three companies of engineers were working in the areas mentioned in the communique in the vicinity of the Crozat Canal."

Thereby hung a tale similar to that which recorded the part American engineers took at Cambrai, as told in the previous volume. By true Teutonic indirection, the German "VorwÄrts," in commenting on the battle in the area named, indicated that the American share in it was not negligible:

"Attacks of combined Allied forces against the pivot of the German attacking front near La FÈre were particularly heavy. These counterattacks did not find us unprepared. It testifies to the superior foresight of the German command that these attacks, in which American troops certainly participated only symbolically, were not only beaten off, but were thrown back on the Oise Canal by an energetic blow."

These allusions were foretokens that something unusual was taking place. The staid official language of General Pershing, in a communication to the War Department, thus described what had happened: "Certain units of United States Engineers, serving with a British army battalion, March 21 and April 3, 1918, while under shell fire, carried out destruction of material dumps at Chaulnes, fell back with British forces to Moreuil, where the commands laid out trench work, then proceeded to Demuin, and were assigned a sector of the defensive line, which was constructed and manned by them, thence moved to a position on the line near Warfusee-Abancourt and extending to north side of Bois de Toillauw. The commands started for this position on March 27, 1918, and occupied it until April 3, 1918, during this time the commanding officer of a unit of United States Engineers being in command of the subsector occupied by his troops. This command was in more or less continuous action during its stay in this position. On April 3, 1918, the command was ordered to fall back to Abbeville."

General Rawlinson, commanding the British forces engaged in this battle, acknowledged the services performed by American engineers in a letter to the colonel commanding a United States engineer regiment.

"I fully realize," he wrote, "that it has been largely due to your assistance that the enemy is checked.... I consider your work in the line to be greatly enhanced by the fact that for six weeks previous to taking your place in the front line your men had been working at such a high pressure erecting a heavy bridge over the Somme. My best congratulations and warm thanks to you all."

It appeared that a gap had to be stopped in the bending line through which the Germans otherwise would have streamed. Amiens lay before their advancing hosts, and the way was open. The critical moment came on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 26, 1918. It was imperative that more troops should be thrown into the British line to arrest the German onrush. Reenforcements were on the way, but could not arrive in time.

A dashing British officer, Brigadier General Carey, hastily improvised a scratch force of every available element within reach. American engineers were among them, and they were eagerly drawn into the fray. By telephone, messenger, and flag signals, General Carey assembled a little army from behind the lines which included labor battalions, cooks, and orderlies, sturdy middle-aged men, of various occupations, electricians, signalers, members of an infantry training school, machine gunners hurriedly armed with rifles, engineers, and fifty cavalrymen for scouting. He also improvised a staff as he proceeded, "officers learning the ground," as one onlooker described it, "by having to defend it and every man from enlisted man to brigadier jumping at each job as it came along."

Early in the German advance, British reports had mentioned "Americans fighting shoulder to shoulder with the French and British." No American force was then identified as in the fight, and not until several days after did Pershing begin to send reenforcements to the Allies. The Americans referred to so mysteriously were part of that strangely mixed force that Carey drummed up from the void. These engineers at Carey's call picked up rifles and merged themselves in his motley corps without orders from anybody. They had been called from their work, which was constructing and operating field railways and building bridges.

The beginning of their exploits was due to three companies of an American engineer regiment being caught in the early bombardment. Ordered to fall back, one of the companies, which had been consolidated with the British Royal Engineers, was delegated to the task of guaranteeing the destruction of the engineers' dump referred to by General Pershing, which it had been decided to abandon. This detachment destroyed all the material, made a rapid retreat, caught up with the larger group, and immediately resumed work, laying out trenches. These operations lasted from March 22 to 27, 1918. As the German attack became more intense, the engineers joined up with the mixed force General Carey had assembled.

Then followed a week's brilliant defense of the road to Amiens. Led by General Carey, this assorted force, numbering 1,500 men, plunged into the swirling battle line, where they were strung over a front of 1,200 yards, against which hordes of Germans were thrown. "It seems almost inconceivable," wrote a correspondent, "that these defenders, brave unto death though they were, could have been able to hold that long sector, but they held. The enemy advanced in force and hurled themselves time and time again against the line in this region, but they found no weak spot. This composite force stood as gallantly and as well as their comrades to the right and to the left. They clung on for many hours until the regulars came up."

What happened at Cambrai had been repeated before Amiens. American engineers, facing an emergency, had thrown their tools aside and taken up arms. They were not many; but, nevertheless, history will never record the battle of Picardy without including the story of how Carey's men acquitted themselves, nor omit the fact that Americans were in the fray.

Afterward American troops in strong force took up positions on the active fighting front in Picardy with the French and British. General Pershing's first reenforcements occupied a sector east of Amiens on a rolling terrain. The artillery was first on the line, entering on a dark night reddened by the continuous flashes of friendly and hostile guns. Under a fire at times heavy, the American gunners took up the positions of the French batteries and set about digging in. When the infantry moved in, the firing was just as intense. In some places the troops, after passing through villages, were raked with shrapnel. In several instances they found the trenches shallow; in other cases there were no trenches at all. The positions were soon improved and the shell holes connected. The American lines generally ran about 200 to 400 yards apart with the high ground about evenly divided about them.

The American troops were there to stay. The pack on each man's back as he entered the firing line was loaded with paraphernalia that pointed to permanency so far as such a condition obtains in warfare. Each carried a blanket, with a pair of shoes tied on either side of it. Among other articles carried were two pairs of socks, a suit of underwear, a towel, soap, toilet articles, two days' emergency rations of four packages of hard bread, and a can of corned beef, whatever trinkets he had, a deck of cards, a set of dice, and photographs and letters especially cherished by him. In addition he carried canteen, rifle, bayonet, 160 rounds of ammunition, a shovel, pick, and a wire cutter (or bolo).

A French communiquÉ, in reporting a violent bombardment of French-American positions on April 24, 1918, specifically located the American sector as "south of the Somme and on the Avre."

The opposing lines ran north and south, with the enemy between the Americans and the rising sun. Between the rear American echelons extended the main road between Amiens and Beauvais. Amiens, the German objective, lay thirty-five kilometers away on the American left. Beauvais was about the same distance away on the American right and two hours distant by train from Paris. The Americans were between the Germans and the sea.

On April 3, 1918, this American line was violently attacked by the Germans near Villers-Bretonneux—the first occasion that brought fully equipped American troops in force into the swing of the continuing Picardy battle. It was an afternoon bombardment, beginning at 5 o'clock, and lasted for two hours. The German guns were directed especially against the Americans, who were supported on the north and south by the French. The intensity of the enemy's fire slacked about 7 o'clock, whereupon the German commander sent forward three battalions of infantry. The Americans met them and a violent struggle ensued. There was hand-to-hand fighting all along the line, as a result of which the enemy was thrust back, his dead and wounded lying on the ground in all directions. Five prisoners remained in American hands. The American losses were severe, but so were the enemy's. The French were full of praise for the manner in which the Americans acquitted themselves under trying circumstances, especially in view of the fact that they were fighting at one of the most difficult points on the battle front.

An interlude of comparative quiet set in, if such a term can be used when there were daily artillery firing and patrolling. The Americans, settling in their positions, became stronger; they appeared to be better intrenched than the Germans, who were continually harassed, day and night. The enemy was wastefully lavish in the use of gas, some of it liquefied, in glass bottles which were hurled through the air apparently by means of a spring. On bursting they liberated heavy, white fumes that caused nausea, sneezing, and coughing, but did not otherwise harm the Americans. These missiles, thrown without any detonation, were a variant on the avalanche of "mustard" gas shells the Germans periodically showered. They appeared to be disconcerted by the unmoved bearing of the Americans before the gas assaults; instead of retreating from the clouds of fumes, the Americans countered by sending gas of twofold strength into the enemy's lines. In fact, the Americans always greeted every exhibition of German fire by returning it two to one. Their positions became daily more firmly established and those of the Germans more difficult to retain.

Higher up, northwest of these positions in Picardy, American troops had established positions in union with the British forces under Sir Douglas Haig. Thus "American fronts" by the middle of May, 1918, interposed along the entire western line from the North Sea to the Swiss border. Their distribution between French and British sectors placed fresh troops where they were needed and afforded scope for invaluable training in modern warfare to both officers and men that they could obtain in no other way. Those in Picardy were not long in proving that they were equal to their experienced Anglo-French comrades in arms in the task they had set themselves.