CANTIGNY

Foretokens of a movement against Cantigny came in the middle of May, 1918, when a searching American artillery fire exploded a huge German ammunition dump at that place and set a number of fires blazing behind the German lines in Montdidier. Near the latter town the Germans later drove a wedge into the American line in a retaliatory attack and stayed there for four hours. The American counterthrust hurled them back; the troops not only drove them across no-man's-land, but followed them into their own second line and made a haul of prisoners. The Germans suffered heavily in the fighting, which was of a hand-to-hand nature at times. The bravery of the Americans may be illustrated by the case of a private whose arm was blown off. Dazed, he kept on fighting, and did not know he had been injured until a comrade came to his aid.

This attack, like those made on the Lorraine front, was an attempt to push back new troops with the object of creating a feeling that they formed a weak link in the defending chain. The next day, however, the weak link stretched beyond its own line and essayed an assault on Cantigny. The action, May 28, 1918, took place while huge German forces elsewhere were in the swing of a drive southward through the Allied lines between Noyon and Rheims, on a forty-mile front, and had overrun the Chemin-des-Dames—throwing back the American forces there—and crossed the Aisne.

The Cantigny exploit did not bulk large in the great battle that raged from Ypres to Rheims; but it showed that, put on their mettle, the new troops were first-class fighting men and a match for the Germans. Amiens, in the neighborhood of which the enemy already had had a foretaste of American valor, was only twenty miles away to the northwest. To the American right the Germans were forging their way to the Marne and creating the celebrated salient between Soissons and Rheims. Away to the left the British and French had just checked the second phase of the German advance between Ypres and Arras. Cantigny brought a little consolation to the Allies, though only a counterdiversion of small account, in the midst of the sweeping German onslaught.

Just west of the village the Germans held a salient, which the Americans determined to flatten out. An advance, on a front of a mile and a quarter, was thereupon organized, involving the employment of a considerable force, and undertaken under the eye of veteran French officers, who made safeguarding dispositions of their own forces to reenforce the Americans if necessary.

The customary artillery fire, augmented by French gunners, signalized the attack, which began early in the morning. Aided by French tanks, the Americans advanced through a mist and made the required distance of 600 yards in ten minutes under machine-gun fire. The tanks found their path easy, the American guns having already prepared the way. In fact, their fire smothered the Germans, whose resistance was so slight that the Americans proceeded to penetrate their positions to a depth of nearly a mile.

A strong unit of flame throwers and engineers aided the Americans. Moving barrages preceded the infantry advance, which followed with clockwork precision. There was some hand-to-hand fighting in the streets, but the hard-hitting Americans, wielding grenade and bayonet, managed to clear the enemy out of the village in three quarters of an hour. A number of Germans had taken refuge in a large tunnel and a number of caves, which formed part of the village fortifications, and the Americans had to hurl grenades like baseballs into these shelters in order to oust them. The Germans entombed in dugouts near by readily trooped out and surrendered when they saw the futility of resistance. In short, the garrison at Cantigny was soon accounted for; the men were either all captured or killed at a slight cost to the Americans. It was found that the Germans had honeycombed the village with outposts and machine-gun emplacements.

The Americans had obtained high ground commanding a section of plateaulike country. In straightening the salient they acquired territory the length of their two-kilometer advance, as well as Cantigny, and brought their line well east of the village.

The Germans attempted several counterattacks, persisting in them for three days. They were met by hurricanes of fire. Waves of German infantrymen were stopped dead or thrown back, leaving many of their number killed or wounded on the ground. There were night bombardments, air bombing, and even tank attacks in addition to fruitless advances of troops. Foot soldiers and tanks alike recoiled before the stone-wall resistance offered by the Americans, who did not budge an inch from the position they occupied on taking Cantigny. On the contrary, in face of continuous attempts to expel them, they consolidated their position, and finally came a quiet day, telling that the Germans had abandoned their efforts to retake the village. The attack and counterattacks yielded 242 prisoners to the Americans.

Berlin, recording the engagement on May 29, 1918, merely said:

"West of Montdidier the enemy during a local advance penetrated into Cantigny yesterday."

General Pershing found occasion to comment thus on this announcement in his report to the War Department:

"Attention is drawn to the fact that the German official communiquÉ of May 29, afternoon, in reporting the capture of Cantigny avoids mention of the fact that the operation was conducted by American troops. Recent marked endeavors of the Germans to discount the fighting qualities of our forces indicate that the enemy feared the moral effect of such admission in Germany."