No thought of peace at Souilly—The third attack—The Rainbow Division before Chatillon ridge—Three days of confused combat—Over the ridge—The Arrows sweep through Romagne—Outflanking the Dame Marie ridge—The new Ace of Diamonds Division—In and out—A corridor of fire—Knitting through the PultiÈre Wood—A fumble in the Rappes Wood—Which is finally "riveted"—The long-enduring Marne Division—Knits further progress.

On the late afternoon of October 13th I happened to be in the stuffy little ante-room at Souilly, when, his great figure filling the doorway, Liggett came out from a conference with Pershing. His face was glowing, his eyes were sparkling as if he had seen a vision come true. We were planning to have four million men in France in the summer of 1919. Its new commander might think of his First Army, after three weeks of battle in the Meuse-Argonne, as only the nucleus of our growing strength.

A few minutes after he had left the ante-room General Pershing's aide received an item of news over the telephone from Paris. This announced that the Germans had provisionally accepted President Wilson's Fourteen Points. Thought turned from our own to other battlefields. Austria had practically thrown up her hands. Turkey was isolated and demoralized. Bulgaria had surrendered; the Serbs and Allied troops were marching to Belgrade; the Belgians were at the gates of Bruges, the British four days later were to enter Lille, and the French had taken Laon in the sweep across the open country. Was the end in sight? So long and so stubbornly had the German armies held out, so habitual had war became, that we who were close to the front saw vaguely as yet the handwriting on the wall which was so distinct to the German command. We knew that the Germans had many times dallied with peace proposals in the hope of weakening Allied morale.

When I went in to see General Pershing, he turned to his big map on the wall, and ran his finger over the Romagne positions. "Liggett is losing no time. He's attacking tomorrow," he said. After he had referred to the plan, he fell to talking of the young reserve officers, their courage, the rapidity with which they had learned their lessons, of the fortitude and initiative of the men, who produced leaders among themselves when their officers fell in action. He had had to drive them very hard; this was the only way to hasten the end of the war. His voice trembled and his eyes grew moist as he dwelt on the sacrifice of life. For the moment he was not a commander under control of an iron purpose, but an individual allowing himself an individual's emotion. Then his aide came in and laid a little slip of paper on his desk, remarking that it contained the news of the German acceptance. I asked the general what he thought of the chance of peace.

"I know nothing about it," he said. "Our business is to go on fighting until I receive orders to cease fire. We must have no other thought, as soldiers."

The only negotiations in his province and in that of the Allied armies were of the kind they had been using for four years: the kind which had brought the Germans to their present state of mind. The prospect of peace should make us fight all the harder, as a further argument for the enemy to yield speedily. Not until the day of the armistice did our preparations diminish, at home or in France, for carrying on the war on an increasing scale of force. Throughout October and the first ten days of November our cablegrams to Washington continued to call for all the material required for four million men in the summer of 1919. Indiscreet as it would have been to encourage the enemy by confessing to our paucity of numbers and lack of material in the summer of 1917, we might lay all our cards on the table in the autumn of 1918.

Liggett's attack of October 14th was our last effort which could be called a general attack before the final drive beginning November 1st, which broke the German line. The general attack of September 26th had broken through the old trench system for deep gains; that of October 4th, with the driving of two wedges on either side of the whale-back, had taken the Aire valley and the gap of GrandprÉ, and brought us up to the Kriemhilde Stellung, or main line of resistance of the whale-back; that of October 14th aimed to drive a wedge on either side of the Romagne heights, taking the Kriemhilde, the two wedges meeting at Grand CarrÉ farm in their converging movement to deliver the heights into our hands. Thus Army ambition was soaring again. If it had succeeded, we should have been up to the Freya Stellung, another fragmentary trench system, the second and inferior line of resistance of the whale-back, and we might not have had to wait another two weeks for victory. The progress of the other armies summoned us, as it had at every stage of the battle, to a superhuman effort to reach the German line of communications, which might now mean a complete military disaster for the enemy.

The 32nd was still facing the CÔte Dame Marie and the town of Romagne in front of the loop in the Kriemhilde. On its left was the 42nd, which had just relieved the exhausted 1st and was to drive the western wedge through the trench system of the Chatillon ridge and on through the Romagne Wood and the large Bantheville Wood.

I have written so much in my first book about the 42nd, in its Baccarat sector, in its "stone-walling" against the fifth German offensive, in the ChÂteau-Thierry counter-offensive, that it seems necessary to say only that it was the Rainbow Division, the second of National Guard divisions to arrive in France, which had shown such mettle, immediately it was sent to the trenches, that it was given every test which a toughened division might be asked to undergo. Major-General Charles T. Menoher, who had been in command throughout its battle service, had the poise requisite to handling the infantry regiments from Alabama, Iowa, New York, and Ohio, and all the other units from many States, in their proud rivalry.

The Arrows of the 32nd, from Michigan and Wisconsin, now on the Rainbows' right, had been on their right when both divisions crossed the Ourcq and stormed the heights with a courage that disregarded appalling casualties. Neither the 42nd nor the 32nd would admit that it had any equals among National Guard divisions. After their weeks of fighting in the Marne region, the Rainbows had come out with staggeringly numerous gaps in their ranks as a result of their victory, which had been filled by replacements who were not even now fully trained. They had been in line for the Saint-Mihiel attack, but were brought to the Argonne to be ready in reserve when a veteran division should be required for a vital thrust. No sooner had they gone into line than they found that the enemy, taking a lesson from the success of the 1st and the 32nd and the 3rd, which had entered the Kriemhilde, had been improving his Kriemhilde line, concentrating more artillery and establishing machine-gun posts to cover any points where experience had developed weakness. The Kriemhilde had thus far resisted all our attacks. It combined many of the defensive advantages of the old trench system with the latest methods of open war defense upon chosen and very formidable ground. The 42nd was to storm one of its key points, the Chatillon ridge.

Will any officer or man of the division forget the days of October 14th, 15th, and 16th? At the very start they were at close quarters, their units intermingling with the Germans in rush and counter-rush, in the midst of machine-gun nests, trenches, and wire entanglements, where man met man in a free-for-all grapple to the death. The rains were at their worst. Every fighter was sopping wet. It was impossible to know where units were in that fiendish battle royal, isolated by curtains of fire.

Summerall was now in command of the Fifth Corps. "Per schedule" and "go through" Summerall, who had driven a human wedge as a division commander, was to drive another as a corps commander. His restless personal observation kept touch with the work of brigade and regiment; his iron will was never more determined.

The 42nd did not keep to the impossible objective beyond, but it did "go through" the formidable Kriemhilde, which had been our nightmare for three weeks, in one of the most terrifically concentrated actions of the battle. There was hard-won progress on the first day on the bloody slopes of Hill 288, while patrols, pushing ahead, found themselves under cross-fire which could not be withstood. When night came, the units in front were already exhausted in a day of fighting of the most wearing kind. "Attack again!" Wire which was not on artillery maps, swept by machine-gun fire, meant delay, but no repulse. The German resistance was unusually brave and skillful in making the most of positions as vital and well-prepared as they were naturally strong. The right, its units rushing here and crawling there to avoid the blasts of machine-gun fire, had put Hill 242 and Hill 288 well behind it on the second day, and had reached the gassed Romagne Wood. The center was held up on the slippery and tricky ascents of the Chatillon ridge, where the German machine-gunners stood until they were killed or so badly wounded that they could not serve their guns; and the German infantry, literally in a fortress stronghold, became more desperate with every hour throughout the afternoon, while dusk found the shivering and tenacious Rainbows dug into the sodden earth and holding their ground. Shattered units were reorganized, and fresh units sent forward for the attack of the next day, which took the ridge. The Kriemhilde Stellung was won.

Those three days had been more horrible than even the Rainbows had known: days which have either to be told in infinite detail, or expressed as a savage wrestle for mastery. Few prisoners might be taken in such confused fighting, when the Germans stuck to the last to their fox-holes and their fragments of trenches. The path of the advance was strewn with German dead. Army ambition had gained much, if not its extreme goal. It had a jumping-off place for a final and decisive general attack. There remained nothing further for the 42nd during the next two weeks except to make sure that its gains were not lost. This required constant patrols and costly vigils under gas, artillery, and machine-gun fire, which were very wearing. On October 30th the division was relieved by the 2nd, which passed through it for the great advance of November 1st. The 42nd had suffered 2,895 casualties in this operation. It could retire after its victory, in full confidence that it had kept faith with the high expectations of its future from the day of its organization. It had brought great honor to itself as a division, to the whole National Guard, and to the replacement officers and men who had served in it.

The 32nd's attack on October 14th was of course intimately connected with that of the 42nd. Having assisted the 1st to drive the wedge over the wall of the Aire, the Arrows had still enough vitality left to carry out their eager desire to complete the conquest of the section of the Kriemhilde on their front. They knew that they had a hard nut to crack, and they began its cracking by turning all the power of their artillery on to the German positions from noon of the 13th until 5.30 on the morning of the 14th, when, under as deep a barrage as the tireless artillery could make, they started for the entrenchments on the Dame Marie ridge, and the town of Romagne. Their left struggled up the slopes of the ridge, but had to halt and dig in, waiting for more artillery preparation to silence the array of machine-guns and guns which, despite the eighteen hours of bombardment, began firing almost as soon as the charge began.

On the right success was more prompt. By noon a battalion was past the village which had resisted so many attempts to capture it. Knowing Romagne of old, the right had executed a clever flanking movement, under the special protection of a flexible barrage, which outwitted the enemy. By 11.30 the village was in the hands of the swiftly moving Arrows, and entirely mopped up. Its name might now be inscribed on the division banners with those of Fismes and Juvigny. The Germans had arranged many bloody traps in the streets, but the men of the 32nd had taken too many positions from the enemy to be fooled by such tricks.

The left meanwhile was burrowing into the steep and slippery sides of the Dame Marie ridge, with a blast of machine-gun fire grilling every head that showed itself. There are occasions when officer and soldier know that the odds are too great against them; when they halt and dig, from the same instinct that makes a man step back from a passing train. This was such an occasion. It looked as if the ridge could not possibly be taken in front, when the men on the extreme flank, quick to press forward instantly there was any opening in the wall of fire, saw their opportunity. The 42nd, with their first onrush halted, had kept on pushing, and they were driving the Germans off Hill 288, which had been pouring its fire into the ranks of the 32nd men facing the Dame Marie. This gave a purchase for a tactical stroke, which was improved before the German realized that he had fumbled, and could retrieve himself. A reserve battalion which was hastened forward slipped around to the left of the Dame Marie. With its pressure on the flank, and that of the center regiment, which had lost liaison on the left but had no thought of stopping while it could keep up with the right, the enemy was forced completely off the ridge by dark, and the advance pressed on into the woods beyond. The Arrows had now not only penetrated the Kriemhilde, but had gone clear through it. Too much gold can not be used in State capitals in inscribing the Dame Marie beside the heights of the Ourcq to glorify the deeds of the 32nd for the admiration of future generations. Despite its two weeks' hard service, it was to remain in line,—or rather to continue advancing for four days longer, as it grappled with the machine-gun nests in Bantheville Wood.

On the night of the 19th-20th it was relieved by the 89th. All the survivors among numerous replacements which it had received after Juvigny could claim to belong to that fraternity of veterans, which, from the hour they marched down the apron of the Ourcq in parade formation in the face of the enemy's guns, had shown the qualities which make armies unconquerable. No division ever stuck to its knitting more consistently, or had been readier to take the brunt of any action. Its part in the Meuse-Argonne battle had been vital and prolonged. The number of its prisoners, all taken in small groups in desperate fighting, was 1,095, its casualties were 5,019, and it had identified the elements of nine German divisions on its front.

On its right in the attack of October 14th a division new to the great battle had come into line—the regular 5th, under command of Major-General John E. McMahon. Its emblem was the ace of diamonds. The 5th was just as regular as the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th, and it had no inkling of a doubt that it could prove as ably as the other four that it was the "best" regular division. As a basis for its confidence was its record in Lorraine, where it had preparation for a larger role in its faultless taking of the village of Frapelle, when for the first time in two years the Vosges mountains had resounded with the bombardment of an offensive action. Officers and men had been thoroughly drilled. Uniformity had not suffered from the injection of inexperienced replacements. The 5th had both the ardor of the fresh divisions which had gone in on September 26th without having previously been under fire, and long trench service, which made the Aces the more eager to be in the "big show."

The command took them at their own estimate in a characteristic—an aggravatedly characteristic—fashion. If ever a division were warranted in losing heart on the ground that their superiors were "not playing the game" with them, it was the 5th, which was submitted to everything in the way of changing orders that is ruinous to morale. It was moved about without any regard to the chessboard rules of war. Doubtless this was necessary; but it was hard on the 5th, though it was only to confirm other people, including the Germans, in the opinion that the 5th was a great division.

On the night of October 11th-12th a brigade of the 5th was ordered to take over the line of the 80th and a part of the line of the 4th. The sector was on the Cunel-Brieulles road, where the 80th had been checked, and under the flanking fire of the galleries of guns, on the right from east of the Meuse, on the left from the whale-back, as well as in front, which I have described fully in my account of the 4th division. Relief was not completed until after daylight, at 6.30 in the morning. Patrols were sent forward into the PultiÈre Wood when word came that the Germans were massing for a counter-attack. The 5th was preparing to receive them, and establishing itself in its sector, when orders came that it was to withdraw. Nothing irritates a soldier of spirit more than to be sent into position for action, and then to turn his back upon the enemy. Withdraw! The aces of diamonds to withdraw! They were willing to play the game, but they were filled with disgust at such an order. After long marches from the rear, after spending the whole night in effecting a most difficult relief under continuous fire, after a day full of annoyances in organizing an uncertain line swept by shell-bursts, they were to march back, through the night in the gamut of the enemy artillery, which became increasingly active in evident knowledge of their exposure. Units had as much reason for becoming confused as they would have in a night attack.

Disheartened at having to retreat—for that was the word for the maneuver—some showed less alacrity than in going to the front, while the filtering process of withdrawal under the cross-fire was bound to separate men from their commands. The language they used of course was against the German artillery, not against high commanders. A part of the relief had to be carried out in broad daylight in sight of the German artillery observers; indeed, it was not finished until noon. Without having made a single charge, the brigade had been exhausted and suffered many casualties.

The change of plan considered using the 5th as a fresh division, which it would not long remain if this kind of maneuvering were continued. Army ambition had decided that it was to be the eastern wedge in the converging attack to Grand CarrÉ farm, of which the 42nd was to be the western. Hence a change of sectors for the 5th, which, after marching into hell's jaws and out again, was to be "side-slipped" into the sector of the amazingly tenacious 3rd, which, though it might well be considered "expended" by its severe casualties and long exertions, was to take over the wicked sector from which the 5th had been withdrawn. "Side-slipping" was almost as common and hateful a word in the battle as liaison. Consider a battalion as a bit of paper fastened by a pin to a map, and moving it right or left was a simple matter; but moving men under shell- and machine-gun fire, in the darkness, from one series of fox-holes to another with which they were not familiar, you may be assured on the word of any soldier, who lost a night's sleep, while soaked to the skin by the chill rain, and had his comrades killed in the process, was anything but a simple matter.

Naturally the three divisions, the 5th, 32nd, and 42nd, were interdependent for success in this converging attack. As the veterans of the 42nd, doing all that veterans could do, were three days in taking the Chatillon ridge, and the regulars of the 5th could not bring to life their dead in the Rappes Wood to continue charging, either division had another reason than the unconquerable resistance on its own front for not keeping the schedule of high ambition.

According to the original plan, the Aces of the 5th, passing through the 3rd, were to advance across open ground in a corridor between the artillery fire of the Romagne heights and the flanking machine-gun nests of the PultiÈre and Rappes Woods, over which flanking artillery fire would pass from the heights east of the Meuse. The 5th's commander was to change the plan—another change with additional maneuvers, though a wise one—by attacking the PultiÈre Wood, which would save the Aces from some flanking machine-gun fire on the right.

It should have been no surprise, after the commotion due to the "side-slipping," double reliefs, and counter-marching, that the enemy knew that an attack was coming. Only if he had lost all tactical sense would he have failed to foresee its nature. He was ready with all his galleries of guns, and with his machine-guns regrouped to meet the emergency, when the wave of the 5th, including troops which had been up two nights in making a relief, being relieved, and taking over again, began the attack, under insufficient artillery support, in all the ardor of their first charge in the great battle.

Our barrage had not silenced the machine-gun nests, which began firing immediately. The enemy's ample artillery shelled our echelons in support, causing losses and a certain amount of inevitable confusion, as they were forced to take cover and deploy. It also laid down a barrage in front of our first wave; but the Aces passed through the swath of the bursts in steady progress up the bare slopes under increasing machine-gun fire, and reached the crests of Hills 260 and 271. There they were exposed to all the guns of the galleries, and to machine-gun fire from the direction of Bantheville in front, from Romagne on the left, and the PultiÈre and Rappes woods on the right. To pass over the crest and down the slopes into the valley beyond was literally to open their arms to receive the bullets and shells. What use was it for the 5th's batteries to face around due east from the line of attack toward the enemy batteries behind the Borne de Cornouiller, which were out of their reach?

The PultiÈre, the southern of the two woods, was about half the size of the Rappes, which was a mile long and separated from it by a narrow open space. The ground was uneven, sloping upward to hills which made the defense of their depths the easier. Our exploiting force sent into the PultiÈre to protect the flank of the main advance had not been strong enough for its purpose. After passing through flanking fire from the direction of Cunel, it was checked in the woods by the machine-guns concealed in the thickets, which also gave cover for machine-guns firing not only into the flank but into the right rear of the main advance. The next step was to take the PultiÈre by a concentrated attack during the afternoon, which drove forward until we had dug in face to face with the remaining machine-gunners in an irregularity of line which was always the result of determined units fighting machine-gun nests in a forest. The Aces who had won this much, their fighting blood fully aroused, proceeded to carry out their mission the next day, the 15th, of further relieving the flank of the advance on the hills, which was being sorely punished as it held to its gains under storms of shells.

Now imperishable valor was to lead to a tragedy of misunderstanding. On through the northern edge of PultiÈre Wood, across the open space between the two woods in face of the machine-gun fire from the edge of the Rappes Wood, then through the dense growth of the Rappes, infiltrating around machine-gun nests, and springing upon their gunners in surprise, again charging them full tilt in front, passing by many which were "playing possum," these Aces of American infantrymen, numbers thinning from death and wounds, but having no thought except to "get there," kept on until a handful of survivors reached the northern edge of the Rappes. This was their destination. They had gone where they were told to go. They dug in among the tree roots in the inky darkness, without the remotest idea of falling back, as they waited for support to come.

Now on the morning of that day, the 15th—after casualties had been streaming back all night under shell-fire from the bare hills which were being resolutely held with rapidly diminishing numbers,—it was found that the total remaining effectives of three regiments were only eleven hundred men, a hundred more than one battalion. Having asked the Corps for reserves, the division commander had attacked for the Rappes Wood as we have seen. The reports that came in to Division Headquarters from the morning's effort showed that we were making little progress in the wood, and were having very hard fighting still in the PultiÈre. The brigade commander ordered another attack on Rappes for the afternoon. This the division commander countermanded. In view of lack of support on his flank, the continuing drain of casualties and the situation of the division as a whole, he felt warranted in indicating that any units which might have made an entry into Rappes withdraw to the PultiÈre.

The next morning patrols which reached the men who were in the northern edge of Rappes passed on the word that they were to fall back. The gallant little band, surrounded by German snipers, had not been able to send back any message. Weren't they of the 5th? Hadn't they been told to "go through" the wood? Was it not the regulation in the 5th to obey orders? Withdraw! Very well; this was orders, too. From their fox-holes where, so far at least, they had held their own in a sniping contest with the enemy, they retraced their steps over the ground they had won past the bodies of their dead comrades. Before Division Headquarters knew of their success, the evacuation of Rappes was completed.

The night of the 16th the total rifle strength of the division was reported as 3,316, or a little more than one-fourth of normal. On the 17th Major-General Hanson E. Ely took command of the 5th. He was of the school of the 1st, long in France; a blue-eyed man of massive physique, who met all situations smilingly and with a firm jaw. The PultiÈre Wood was definitely mopped up during the day.

The brigade which had been in the 3rd Division's sector and suffered the most casualties and exhaustion was relieved. At least the 5th, weakened as it was by a battle in which the Aces fought as if they were the whole pack of cards, must hold the PultiÈre, and Hills 260 and 271. On the night of the 16th-17th the divisional engineers did a remarkable piece of work, even for engineers. They brought up under shell-fire and gas, and laid under shell- and machine-gun fire, two thousand yards of double wire to protect the tired infantry, which was busily digging in, against counter-attacks.

By this time, of course, the prospect of taking Grand CarrÉ farm by the converging movement seemed out of the question. The farm was more than a mile beyond Bantheville, which was nearly a mile beyond the southern edge of the Rappes Wood. But when the 32nd reported progress in the Bantheville Wood on the 18th, and its patrols had seen no one in Bantheville, the 5th was sent to the attack again. Its patrols, which reached the edge of the town, found it well populated with machine-gunners, who might have only recently arrived. As for the Rappes Wood, all the cunning and daring we could exert in infiltration could take us only four hundred yards into its depths, where the Germans had been forewarned to preparedness by their previous experience.

On the 19th the 5th held fast under the welter of shell-fire from the heights and across the Meuse, while General Ely straightened out his organization, and applied remedies for a better liaison between the artillery and the infantry. On the 20th, the idea of "pushing" still dominant, under a heavy barrage the 5th concentrated all its available numbers of exhausted men in a hastily formed plan for another attempt for the Rappes Wood. It made some two hundred yards' progress against the sprays of bullets ripping through the thickets. The 5th was "expended" in vitality and numbers after these grueling six days; but it was not to give up while the Germans were in the Rappes Wood. The Aces made swift work of its taking on the next day. Their artillery and that of the 3rd on their left gave the men a good rolling barrage. The enemy artillery replied in a storm immediately; but the Aces, assisted by the men of the 3rd Division attacking from their side, drove through the shell-fire and all the machine-gun nests with what one of the men called a "four of a kind" sweep. At 5 P.M. the reports said that the wood was not only occupied but "riveted." At 6 P.M. the enemy answered this success with a counter-attack, which the 5th's artillery met, in three minutes after it had started, with a barrage which was its undoing. Having consolidated Rappes and avenged the pioneers who had first traversed it, the 5th was now relieved by the 90th, and sent to corps reserve. The exposure had brought on much sickness, which increased the gaps due to casualties. Absorbing three thousand replacements, General Ely, reflecting in his personality the spirit of his men, was now to prepare them for their brilliant part in the drive of November 1st.

The 3rd Division, on the right of the 5th, had had of course to submit to the same annoyance of "side-slipping" as the 5th in the interchange of sectors. Having assisted in driving one of the wedges of October 4th, it was now to continue under the shell-fire from the neighborhood of the Borne de Cornouiller across the Meuse in forcing its way still farther. It made slow and difficult progress in the eastern edge of the PultiÈre Wood and the ForÊt Wood on the 14th, and, the division sector being swung east, as the 5th, in turn dependent upon the other divisions, had a misfortune in the Rappes Wood, not even the dependable infantry of the 3rd could make headway under flanking fire against the Clairs ChÊnes Wood and Hill 299.

On the 16th Brigadier-General Preston Brown, one of the younger brigadiers, a well-known Leavenworth man who had been chief of staff of the 2nd Division in its stand on the Paris-ChÂteau-Thierry road, took command of the 3rd. His appointment was significant of how youth will always be served under the test of war. On the 17th nothing was expected of the division by the Corps; on the 18th it advanced in liaison with the 5th in the attack on the Rappes Wood, which only partially succeeded. Now that tough and dependable 3rd took over the front of the 4th Division, which had been in since September 26th, and with all four regiments in line its front reached to the bank of the Meuse from Cunel.

On the 20th, the day that the 5th was to take Rappes, General Brown now having made his preparations, the 3rd went for Clairs ChÊnes Wood and Hill 299 in deadly earnest, which meant that something would have to "break." It was characteristic of the handicaps under which every division labored that in crossing the open spaces on their way to Clairs ChÊnes the 3rd had flanking machine-gun fire from the machine-guns in the Rappes Wood, which had not yet been taken. The 3rd took Clairs ChÊnes, but the flanking movement planned for the taking of 299 could not go through. The next day General Brown converged two attacks upon 299 and 297. Two of the highest hills in the region, which had long been a vantage point for observers, were won, and the 3rd's line straightened out with veteran precision.

The 3rd had been going too fast these last two days to suit the enemy's plans of defense. He concentrated his artillery in a violent bombardment on Clairs ChÊnes, and under a barrage worthy of German gunners in their most prodigal days the German infantry, in one of those spasmodic counter-attacks which showed all their former spirit, forced our machine-gunners and engineers to withdraw. A regimental commander repeated an incident of the 3rd's defense of MÉzy and the railroad track along the Marne, when he gathered runners and all the men he could find in the vicinity, and led them in a charge which drove the Germans out of the wood, and re-established the line. The Germans found what compensation they could by pounding Hill 299 all night with their guns; but that hill was too high and too valuable to be yielded by such stalwart dependables as the men of the 3rd. During the next five days, while our whole line was preparing for the drive of November 1st, the 3rd's active patrols even entered the village of Brieulles on the river bank, which for over four weeks had been a sore point with us; but they were told that it was too dangerous a position to hold, and withdrew.

On the night of the 26th the 3rd was relieved by the 5th, now recuperated. It was a pity that the 3rd, after its wonderful record in the battle, could not have participated in the sweep of our battalions down the far slopes of the whale-back. In line since October 1st, four weeks lacking two days, it had paid a price for taking the Mamelle trench, and for all its enduring, skillful attacks under that diabolical cross-fire from the galleries of heights. Its casualties, 8,422, were more than half its infantry, and, taken in connection with the positions it gained and its length of service, are an all-sufficient tribute to its character.