Did you ever stand waiting for death? I suppose not--but that was what happened to our gun crews. The plane swooped low and seemed to hang right over us. We waited, hardly daring to breathe. I saw the perspiration running from one fellow"s face, and guess it was running down mine. I know that I had a most pressing desire to run--anywhere, so long as I was moving. As I was looking down I glanced at my wrist watch about every thirty seconds and lived minutes between each glance. No one spoke--it was as if we had suddenly been turned to wood. Then after fifteen minutes of observation the Hun plane circled away from us--and we had lived several lifetimes in that short time.
[Sidenote: Army trucks take us back to the village.]
It was the fog that got me--and sent me back to the United States. Two years before, coming home from drill at the armory (I was then a member of the National Guard) I fell asleep on the train and contracted a severe cold. The cold never seemed to leave me, and now, after a week of fog, after sleeping in a gun pit, I grew hoa.r.s.e and developed a nasty cough. I was not really sick when I left the firing line after my six days and returned to the billet, but I felt pretty miserable. I can remember being glad when, after a several miles" walk back of the lines, we found the army trucks ready to carry us to the village where we were quartered.
[Sidenote: A month at the base hospital.]
I spent four days in the billet receiving further instruction from my French officer, and then after ten days I started back to the training camp, where I was to help in the instruction of the fellows of my division who had not as yet been under fire. By the time I reached the camp I was what might be termed all in, down and out. I went to the hospital, and when I was able I was moved in an ambulance to a U.S. Army Base hospital far removed from the firing line. I was at the base hospital a month, and spent most of the time in the sunshine trying to get rid of the heavy bronchial condition that had fastened itself to me.
The hospital was full--but not with Americans. I was surrounded by fellows from all the allied nations, and had the chance to talk with them. They"re a great lot, and anybody who has any doubt about whether we are going to win this war needs only a few minutes" conversation with some of the chaps that have been over there for years. You bet we"re going to win--there isn"t a thought of anything else but victory.
[Sidenote: Orders to go home.]
At the end of my month at the base hospital it was decided that I was not fit for the firing line. Uncle Sam is mighty good to his fellows--he does not believe in placing them under unnecessary risks, and when the doctors said that my bronchial condition was practically chronic, and the life on the firing line would only aggravate it, I got my orders to go home and take up service in a climate where there was less chance of my becoming a liability and where there was just as much work for me to do as in France, though of a different nature.
It was a disappointment, but I"m glad to think that I had those six days on the firing line, and proud to think that I was with the first batch of Americans to see service in the fight against autocracy.
Copyright, The Forum, May, 1918.
That portion of France in which the American army did its most active fighting is a country filled with historic and romantic a.s.sociations. It is also a country of great scenic beauty. The following article describes graphically the general aspect of this portion of France.
AN AMERICAN BATTLEFIELD
RAOUL BLANCHARD
[Sidenote: A glorious battlefield.]
Terrific battles, ushering in the dawn of victories which will ensure the freedom of the world, were fought in July and August, 1918, between the Marne and Vesle rivers, from Chateau-Thierry to Soissons and Fismes.
In this soul-stirring struggle the young American troops played a large part, and played it with heroism and success. It has occurred to us, therefore, that the American people will be glad to become acquainted with the battlefield made glorious by their sons, with the soil which will some day be a consecrated goal of pilgrimage for the entire nation.
[Sidenote: The field once the most beautiful country.]
This field of death, bristling with ruins still smouldering, was formerly, and will soon be once more, a beautiful stretch of country.
Here we are in the heart of the Ile de France, and the countryside displays all the gracious charm of a typical French landscape. With its undulating plateaus, pleasant vales, broad green valleys, forests and greensward, chateaux and villas, small towns, and dear old villages thronged with souvenirs of the past, the district between the Marne and the Aisne was peculiarly representative of France--the France of the Merovingians and Capets as well as of the twentieth century.
There is no manufacturing and little commercial activity; but a skillful, varied, and persistent culture of the soil, with special attention to those most exacting of crops, the vine and vegetables, which are successfully raised only by dint of hard labor, and to the production of vast quant.i.ties of sugar-beets and cereals.
[Sidenote: The villages are built of stone.]
The villages, built of the beautiful stone of the district, have, one and all, an air of dignity and prosperity which gives animation to the landscape. The very names are among the most pleasant to the ear, and often among the most ill.u.s.trious in the language. Our great men of letters, La Fontaine and Racine, Pope Urban II, who preached the First Crusade, and other statesmen and princes, all born in the province, had already made it a genuinely historic spot; and the memory of the battles fought by Napoleon at Chateau-Thierry and Soissons, against the invaders of 1814, has not yet faded. When they turned the enemy back from Paris, the Americans were fighting in the most truly French of all the districts of France, and their gallantry has imparted to it a new charm, a more resplendent glory.
[Sidenote: Topography from the Marne to the Vesle.]
But this attractive region does not exhibit everywhere the same features. The topography of the Ile de France is so varied that one can distinguish several families, or groups, of landscapes between the Marne and the Vesle. Let us follow them, in the order followed by the different stages of the battle.
The southern portion is the most elevated and most picturesque; it includes the sh.o.r.es of the Marne, from Epernay to Chateau-Thierry, as well as the hills and valleys to the eastward, grouped about the Ardre River in the district called the Tardenois. In the centre the battlefield embraces plateaus studded with low hills, half hidden by broad patches of forest, and cut by deep, narrow valleys--those of the Ourcq and its affluents; whence the region is known as the district of the Ourq, or the Orxois. Lastly, to the north this undulating ground gives place to a practically level plateau, a vast table-land of cultivated fields, through which flow the deep ravines of the Aisne, the Vesle, and their affluents. This is the Soissonnais.
[Sidenote: The wake of the American armies.]
From the Tardenois to the Soissonnais by way of the Orxois, let us follow in the wake of the French and American armies, in their decisively victorious advance.
[Sidenote: Valleys of stream cut deep.]
On emerging from the plains of Champagne, at Epernay, the Marne flows through the plateaus of the Ile de France as far as Paris, and the country along its banks changes its aspect. Instead of the wide valley which seems one with the immense bare plain, the stream, breaking out a path for itself through the solid ma.s.s of the plateau, has cut a gash from 500 to 2000 metres in width, which turns and winds in graceful and ever-changing curves. Thus, although its general course is from east to west, the trend of the walls of the valley constantly changes and bears toward every point of the compa.s.s in turn. Moreover, these walls, intersected by the ravines and valleys of numerous tributary streams, are cut up into capes, bastions, and deep hollows. Finally, the cliff from whose summit the plateau overlooks the valley, and whose average height is about 150 metres, at times rises steeply from the lowland, and again is broken up into terraces following the different strata of which it is composed. Thus, although the topographical elements are simple enough, they lend themselves to an ever-changing combination of forms, which gives to the landscape its great charm, and at the same time offers some formidable advantages of various kinds from a military standpoint.
[Sidenote: The placid Marne.]
[Sidenote: The Marne easy to cross.]
The bright green ribbon of the Marne winds along the valley bottom. The placid stream, about a hundred metres wide and broken here and there by islets, wanders from one bank to the other, lined by poplars and willows. On either side of its limpid waters are broad fields, whose delicate greenery frames the sparkling line of the river, which forms a by no means impa.s.sable obstacle. In the days just preceding the German offensive of July 15, American patrols constantly crossed between Chateau-Thierry and Mezy, and picked up prisoners and information on the northern bank. In like manner, during that offensive the attacking German troops were able without great losses to cross the Marne and attack the defenders on the southern bank. To be sure, the Allied air-men made their life a burden by keeping up an incessant bombardment of the bridges, large and small.
[Sidenote: Fierce fighting on the slopes.]
But the real obstacle which this valley offers is found in the slopes which dominate it, and it was there that the fiercest fighting took place until the day when the French and Americans, having thrown the enemy back across the river, scaled the cliffs of the right bank on his heels and dislodged him therefrom. In this neighborhood there were two sectors of terrific fighting--that of Chatillon-Dormans upstream, and that of Chateau-Thierry below.
[Sidenote: A wide valley with steep slopes.]
[Sidenote: The vine-growing district.]
Going upstream, the valley is quite wide: from Monvoisin to Dormans, by Chateau-Thierry, it measures two kilometres almost everywhere. The high cliff which overlooks it on the north, cut by a mult.i.tude of narrow valleys coming down from the table-land of the Tardenois, forms a series of b.u.t.tresses which make excellent defensive positions. On the sharpest, which is a genuine peninsula overhanging the main valley, sits the village of Chatillon, formerly crowned by a haughty feudal castle, on whose ruins was erected a statue of Pope Urban II, who long ago had trouble with the German emperors. The slopes below are hard to climb, because of their steepness and the network of tilled fields. Here we are at the heart of the vine-growing district, and these banks of the Marne contribute largely to the production of the famous champagne. The vines extend, on long rows of poles, to the very summit of the cliffs, especially on the right bank, which has a better exposure to the sun; they are often connected by strands of wire, on which straw mats are placed to protect the vines from the cold in winter.
[Sidenote: Allied troops find many obstacles.]
On a lower level, nearer the stream, are magnificent orchards: the cherry tree joins with the vine to impart to those slopes an aspect of rustic opulence. Huddled white villages, with tawny-hued pointed roofs, follow one another in regular succession on the rolling ground. Their names have lately won a terrible celebrity: Binson, Vandieres, Vincelles, Treloup. Sandstone quarries burrow into the summit of the cliffs and furnish shelters for the defenders. Finally, there are strips of forest along the slopes wherever the exposure is thought poorly suited for crops. All these features unite to form a cheerful, animated, lovely landscape; but at the same time a conglomeration of obstacles which the Allied troops were able to overcome only after fierce fighting.
[Sidenote: Villages in the hillsides.]
Below the little town of Dormans, the valley narrows temporarily: from Treloup to Brasles it is frequently less than 500 metres in width. The cliff, although steep as before, is less cut up, and the patches of forest are large. At the mouths of the smaller affluent valleys, the villages rear their church-towers on the hillsides, overlooking the lowest vineyards and orchards; on this right bank are Jaulgonne, Charteves, and Mont Saint-Pere, all taken by the Allies late in July, and Fossoy, where the Americans successfully repulsed the German attack of July 15.
[Sidenote: The ancient town of Chateau-Thierry.]
But now the valley widens once more as it enters the broad basin of Chateau-Thierry. It is a beautiful spot, and at the same time, of great military value. The little town long ago forgot its role of fortress, but has been brutally reminded of it by the violence of the battles that have been fought in its neighborhood. In the foreground is the wide expanse of fields in the valley bottom; then a suburb of the town enclosed between two arms of the Marne. Across the river, scaling the slopes of a hill crowned by the ruins of a castle, the town rises, terrace-like, at the mouth of a narrow valley. The position can be carried by frontal attack only on the heels of a defeated foe, as Napoleon carried it in 1814, and Franchet d"Esperey just a hundred years later. But in 1918 the Americans had to take Chateau-Thierry in flank, and in order to force their way into the town, had to fight the b.l.o.o.d.y battles of Vaux, Bouresches, and Etrepilly, which carried them to the north of the town and hastened its evacuation.
[Sidenote: Military operations difficult.]
What is the nature of the terrain above those steep cliffs which enclose the valley of the Marne? Does it become more favorable to military operations than the deep depression through which the river flows? Not by any means. The surface of the table-land is broken by so many ravines and narrow valleys which descend steeply to the Marne, that it is cut into a mult.i.tude of ridges and hillocks amid which it is no longer possible to recognize the original horizontal aspect of the plateau.
[Sidenote: Heavy impermeable soil.]
[Sidenote: Hills that are fortresses.]
On the other hand, the strata which lie on the surface--loam, sandstone, and clayey sand--make a heavy, impermeable soil, quite infertile, in which it is hard to raise anything, and which is largely given over to woods. Thus, freedom of movement is impeded by deep ravines, ridges running in all directions, and more or less dense forests; an offensive is difficult, and the defensive easy. This is true in the immediate neighborhood of Chateau-Thierry, where the ravines of Vaux, Brasles, Charteves, Jaulgonne, and Treloup, and the valley of the Surmelin, slash the plateau on either side of the Marne into fragments--into forest-topped hillocks which are genuine fortresses, where the struggle was terrific and where the Allies were able to advance only one step at a time: on Hill 204, west of Chateau-Thierry, in the Bois de Mont St-Pere, the forest of Feze above Jaulgonne, and especially on the spur of the forest of Riz; and south of the Marne, at the broad, wooded bastion of Saint-Agnan and at La Chapelle-Monthodon, where the fighting was so intense from the 15th to the 20th of July.