The 1st marking time—A fumble gives one height—Relying on the engineers—The triangle of hills—A tribute from the enemy—The Arrow Division also pointed at the whale-back—Which resists intact—Still the 1st goes on—"As good as the 1st."

As soon as the 82nd's attacks on the river bottoms were well under way, the 1st was to make another rush, driving its wedge ahead of the 82nd's front over the hills of the eastern wall. On the 6th, the day before the All-Americas took Hills 180 and 223, and the day before the Pennsylvanians of the 28th took ChÂtel-ChÉhÉry, the 1st was due to mark time; and so also was the 32nd—still holding the block of the Morine and ChÊne Sec woods and withdrawn from Gesnes,—which was in turn dependent for further advance upon the movement in the Aire trough. The flanks of the two divisions, left out of liaison as a result of the viciously confused fighting of the 5th, must join up.

In the neighborhood of their junction, northwest of the Morine and ChÊne Sec woods, the highest point was Hill 269, in the Moncy Wood. To the west 269 looked across all the hilltops to the Argonne Forest, and to the east almost to the Meuse. This distance of vision, it should be explained, did not mean observation of the slopes of the other hills or the low ground at their bases. Each hill which we had conquered or had yet to conquer on the way to the whale-back was only one of an interlocking series. Though none approached the spectacular formidability of an isolated height towering over a surrounding plain, Hill 269 was relatively very important because of its situation and altitude.

The statement that the 1st was marking time on the 6th must be qualified by the activity of its patrols; for it was not in the nature or traditions of the pioneer division ever to dig a hole and sit in it all day, leaving the initiative to the enemy. It was always hugging him close, ready to jump for any opening that offered. A patrol kept on going until it developed enough resistance to warrant its withdrawal with the information it had gained. Also it took responsibility, and did not wait on orders if it found an opportunity of turning a trick. This seems an obvious system; but its application may vary in efficiency from experience to inexperience, from clumsiness to shrewdness, from foolish bravado to courageous and resourceful discretion. One of the 1st's patrols, in the course of linking up with the 32nd on the 6th, kept feeling its way through the Moncy Wood without any opposition until it came to the top of Hill 269. This was in the 32nd Division's sector; but veteran divisions do not stand on etiquette on such occasions. They know that in the gamble of battle the division which lends a helping hand one day may need a helping hand the next. In sending out the patrol, the brigade commander had made it small, as he did not want many men killed; for he appreciated what hidden machine-guns could do to the most agile group of scouts when the gunners held their fire for a propitious moment.

We had caught the Germans napping on 269. The advantage we had gained resembled that taken of a fumble at football. Any "kid" lieutenant or any one of his men could see as well as General Pershing himself that this crest was worth holding; and that daring little group held it until relieved by two companies of the 32nd. Meanwhile the fumble had enabled the 1st to take the AriÉtal farm, which formed a natural rallying point for enemy machine-gunners in the ravine between the Moncy and the Little woods (le Petit Bois). This was an advantage for the next attack second only to the occupation of 269, with which it had a close tactical relation.

On the 7th the 1st, which had been under the First Corps, was transferred to the Fifth, and its front extended to include Hill 269. It was now time for the division engineers, who had been working night and day on the roads, to cease their idling and begin fighting. The battalion which was sent to take over 269 from the 32nd was soon to find what store the Germans set by it, once they realized the blunder that had allowed it to slip out of their hands. The enemy's artillery proceeded to make this sharply defined cone a pillar of hell; but the engineers were used to digging, and they dug with a vengeance. They were also used to sticking on the job. In the face of counter-attacks, supported by a rain of shells and bullets of artillery and machine-gun barrages, they held their ground in the midst of fountains of earth and flying dÉbris and frightful casualties, with that resolution in which every man, no matter how many of his comrades are killed, determines that he will not yield alive.

After the driving of the wedge to FlÉville and the taking of Montrefagne, the 1st had been badly shattered. The heavy rains had made the holding of the eastern wall of the Aire under the murderously accurate flanking fire from the western wall all the more horrible. Transport was being regularly shelled; woods, where reserves might take cover, were being gassed. Not only was the doctrine of the 1st never to yield ground taken upheld at every point, but it was continuing to improve its position on the 7th and 8th while it reorganized its available forces, steadily reduced by casualties, in an undaunted offensive spirit.

The 28th having taken the ChÂtel-ChÉhÉry heights of the opposite valley wall, and the 82nd attacking the Cornay heights, the 9th was chosen as the day when the hammer should again begin pounding the wedge into the ramparts ahead. By this time the 1st had had over 5,000 casualties, representing more than one-third of its infantry. There was an old rule that when a third of your men were out of action it was time for retreat. This had ceased to apply in the Great War; it was hardly a view that Summerall would hold. The 1st had not yet finished its task, and he meant that it should be finished. There could be no question of fatigue, or excuses. More engineers were summoned into line; everything that veteran experience could arrange was ready. The ammunition supply and the transport were up; the hospital service was prepared for heavy casualties. Every man's jaw was set for a final triumphant drive which should finally clear the wall of the Aire.

The enemy's jaw was set too. He knew that our next rush would be a desperate effort to reach the main-line defenses of the whale-back. Indeed, this was our plan, which required that the 1st go about a mile and a half over even more formidable ground than in the drive of the 4th and 5th. On the 1st's right, Hill 269 in the Moncy Wood was safely held, if at a bloody cost. On the center and right the Montrefagne Wood ran northeast in the narrow tongue of the Little Wood. In this wood, about on a line with 269, was Hill 272, the highest of all the hills on the 1st's front, which we knew was strongly held and strongly fortified. The Little Wood, broadening beyond it, extended westward, while the ravine between it and the Moncy Wood (Hill 269) wound in the same direction. Well back in this portion of the Little Wood was Hill 263, which was at the apex of a triangle with 269 and 272 as the base. Our seizure of AriÉtal farm in the ravine before it could be fortified enabled our men, thanks to the protection from our seizure of Hill 269, to establish themselves on the 7th and 8th on the slopes of the two other hills. Thus we were saved from a cross-fire in having to pass between the two base angles of the triangle toward the apex. We could take Hill 272, the remaining hill at the base, in flank. It was certainly good generalship which won this advantage for us, and poor generalship which lost it for the enemy. Once we had Hill 263 at the apex, it was downhill through the Romagne woods until we were before the Kriemhilde Stellung, which bent southward on the 1st's right in front of the 32nd's sector. To the west of Little and Romagne woods many patches of woods gave cover for machine-guns on the ascents of the Maldah ridge, which ran to the end of the Aire wall where the Aire bent sharply westward to the gap of GrandprÉ. However, the crux of the problem of the 1st on the 9th was the taking of Hill 272 at the western point of the triangle and 263 at the apex.

Being a gunner, Summerall believed in making the most of gun power. He had trained the artillery of the 1st, and knew its capabilities. This implied anything but penuriousness in the expenditure of ammunition. Throughout the 7th and 8th, day and night, the 1st's artillery had been "softening" the defenses of these two hills and of all the other positions with a concentrated bombardment, and placing ceaseless interdictory fire in their rear to keep them isolated from communication.

If ever infantry needed powerful barrages to protect its swift charges, it was on the morning of the 9th. Any failure to go home at any point might be fatal to the whole movement. As supple as the enemy, the 1st was using roving, or tramp, guns to counter his roving guns. The remainder of the divisional artillery was entirely concentrated in making shields in turn for the right, left, and center, which advanced successively instead of at the same time. The weather as well as the barrages was in our favor. A dense fog hid our waves from the enemy's observation. His machine-gunners in some instances could not see to fire until our men were upon them; in others, as the fog lifted on the exposed targets, our losses were ghastly without staying our progress.

Apart from the engineers, the division had only one battalion of fresh infantry in reserve. This battalion was sent against the highest of the hills, 272. Breaking through the fog, in bolt surprise, it took prisoner every man of the garrison of 272 who was not killed. As the curtain of bursting shells of the shield which our men were hugging lifted, the German lieutenant-colonel in command of the hill started out of his dugout, only to see the charge sweeping past its mouth, and, in turn, past all the dugouts where his troops had taken cover from the approaching tornado. He knew that all was lost; and he wept in his humiliation at being captured. It was the first time that the shock division to which he belonged had ever been on the defensive. He paid a soldier's tribute to the power and accuracy of the artillery fire of the 1st, which for two days had marooned him, without food for his men and unable to send them orders or to receive orders from his superior. He had not believed that in five years the Americans would have been able to develop such a division as the 1st; and one's only comment on this is that the men of the 1st were the same kind of men as in the other divisions. He had happened to meet the 1st, as any other division will tell you. German officers who met other divisions in the Argonne held the same view about them. Professional opinions from such experts were worth while.

Our attack on Hill 272 on the left and our possession of 269 on the right protecting their flanks, the troops which were making a head-on drive for 263 had an equally brilliant success, thanks to the same thoroughgoing, enterprising, and courageous tactics. Those on the left, with the enemy's plans upset by the loss of 272 and 263, wove their way through the patches of woods, conquering successive machine-gun nests until the CÔte de Maldah was theirs in a sweep no less important as a part of the well-arranged whole, though perhaps less sensational. So much for the day's work of the 1st in the high tide of its career on October 9th.

We shall now take up that of the Arrows of the 32nd. On the 7th and 8th the 32nd had been busy sending out patrols and seeking to gain certain vantage points which would be useful in the next day's attack. It had established itself in Gesnes. Its own artillery was now back with the division, taking the place of that of the 30th Division, which, after its exhausting work in forcing its guns through the Montfaucon woods in support of the 37th, had still remained in line in support of the 32nd. In addition the artillery of the 42nd, or Rainbow, Division, which was now coming up in reserve, was placed at the disposal of the 32nd; for it could not have too much gun power if it were to make any headway on the 9th. Nor could it have too much infantry. The 181st Brigade of the 91st, Pacific Coast, Division had not gone into rest when the 91st had been "expended" in the early period of the battle. It was now placed in line between the 1st and the 32nd, and despite their fatigue the Pacific Coast men were relied upon for nothing less than the assault of that Hill 255 whose galling fire had checked the 32nd's advance on the 5th.

The "side-slipping" of the division sector when the 1st relinquished the bank of the Aire and came under the administration of the Fifth Corps had not given the 32nd any easier task. Wasn't it a veteran division? Wasn't it used to being expended? The ambition of the Army command was in the saddle again, expecting the Arrows, with the artillery of two divisions in support, to penetrate immediately the Kriemhilde Stellung, or main defenses of the whale-back.

As the Kriemhilde bent south past the 1st's flank, it was within a mile of the 32nd's front. On the 32nd's left it was established in the Valoup Wood on the ridge of the CÔte Dame Marie, a name of infernal associations in the history of two veteran divisions. In the center it passed in front of the town of Romagne. To the right or east it continued on another ridge in the strong Mamelle trench. The plan was a swing to the left through Valoup Wood to take the CÔte Dame Marie, and a swing to the right to take the Mamelle trench, encircling the village of Romagne, while the center on the Gesnes-Romagne road regulated its advance with that of the flanks.

It might have been carried out in one day, as an officer said, if the 32nd had had the artillery of five or six divisions and a score of heavy batteries from the French, while the men had been provided with shell- and bullet-proof armor. This heroic dream is mentioned in passing. More to the point is what the men of the 32nd accomplished; for they almost made the dream come true before darkness fell on the night of October 9th. They were the Arrows indeed—an arrow on the right and on the left—with the bow of determination drawn taut before the attacks were released. That on the left penetrated the Dame Marie, while the right penetrated the Mamelle trench where the meager numbers which formed the very tip of the arrow-head were stopped in a bout of hand-to-hand fighting, while their comrades on the right and left were held up by the wire and the relentlessly increasing machine-gun fire. The center could not advance. Romagne was not encircled.

The 181st Brigade of the 91st had orders to hold during the attack on the 9th; then, as standing still appeared to be poor policy, it had orders to assault Hill 255, whose fire had stayed progress on the 6th. Later orders came that the support was unnecessary, but not until the Pacific Coast men were already started forward, only to have to dig in in face of annihilating fire. The next day, the Germans now evacuating Hill 255 under the flanking pressure of the 1st and 32nd, the Pacific Coast men mopped up the hill, captured the concrete blockhouse on the reverse slope, and then set out to mop up the Tuilerie farm, which was supposed to be taken. Unfortunately it was not taken. Between them and the farm was Hill 288, the highest of all, with an outpost of the Kriemhilde position in the form of a horseshoe organized in a sunken road with walls twenty or thirty feet high. Tunnels from the road allowed the machine-gunners to play hide and seek in going and coming to the slope. Their fire and plentiful gas and high-explosive shells checked the front line about three hundred yards south of the hill. The next day the brigade was to attack again in case there were enough artillery fire forthcoming to "soften" the hill; but there was not. The Pacific Coast men were now relieved by units of the 32nd. Shivering for want of woolen underwear, rarely getting hot meals, their long service in the battle was over. Though many were ill, they refused to report on the sick list for fear that they would be transferred from hospital to another division than their own.

It was no less a policy of the Arrows of the 32nd than of the 1st Division never to yield gains. They were at close quarters with the Kriemhilde, and they proposed to remain there. The enemy's fully aroused artillery and machine-gun resistance to protect the points where the Kriemhilde had been entered prevented any headway on the 10th and 11th, while hand-to-hand fighting continued on the Dame Marie ridge. Before the 32nd was to conquer the ridge and take Romagne, it must make preparation equal to the task. This belongs to another stage of the battle. We are presently concerned with the fact that the Arrows had done their part in the costly operation that had conquered the heights into which the 1st had driven its wedge.

The enemy now withdrawing from the front of the 1st across the valley and low ground to the Kriemhilde, which was here farther north than in front of the 32nd, the 1st, in a movement of exploitation, with gratefully few casualties made a mile on the 10th, passing through the Romagne Wood and beyond the village of Sommerance. On the next day, feeling out the enemy positions with a knowing hand, the veterans learned that they could be taken only by fresh troops in a thoroughly organized attack. The 1st had accomplished its daring mission; it had won a telling victory. Three-fifths of its infantry was out of action from death and wounds; the remainder had been fully "expended" in exhaustion or sickness. Surely no division in all our history had ever been in finer condition for battle, or fought with more discipline and skillful valor, or suffered more losses in a single action. "To be as good" as the pioneer 1st had been the ambition of all the divisions in the early days of our fighting in France. If some became as good, this is the more honor to them.

The affection of long association creeps in as I think of the 1st's first detachments arriving at Saint-Nazaire, or of its pioneer training on the drill-grounds at Gondrecourt in the days when there was a fear in our hearts that we might yet lose the war. The 1st had confidence without boasting, and dignity without punctiliousness; its pride kept it from dwelling on the excuses of unprotected flanks; it was on good terms with neighboring divisions and with the French: self-reliant, systematic, trying to live up to the fortune that had made it the first to arrive in France and was to make it the last to go home. It had expected to pay a heavy price for its crowning success; and paid it with an absence of grumbling which makes the sacrifice of life of a transcendent nobility, however worn and filthy the khaki it wears.

When relieved by the 42nd the 1st withdrew, after casualties of 8,554, in faultlessly good order from the line of the gains which it securely held.