Chapter II: Part 2

The _boche_ went into the war as a robber, the _poilu_ as a crusader determined to save the sacred and holy things of the world from desecration and destruction, the _Tommy_ as a player in a great game, and the _Yank_ as a policeman whose job it was to "clean up" the affair.

To the American soldiers, the _Yanks_, and to the American people, the war was a job, a most disagreeable one, but one that must be done. No one else was ready and able to do it; so they went at it smilingly and "jollied" every one with whom they came in contact.

French children were asked to write descriptions of the "Yanks" for a New York paper. They nearly all said that they were big and handsome and quick, that they always smiled and were always hungry, especially for chocolate and candy. The French noticed the everlasting smile of the _Yank_, for after three years of war and suffering the French, even the children, had ceased to smile. It is said the children had even forgotten how to play, but they responded to the love in the hearts of the _Yanks_, as did the German children when the American soldiers crossed the Rhine. To the _Yanks_ there were no enemies among the children; they loved them, French or German.

The _Yank_ did not smile because he failed to realize the seriousness of his job, but because with him the harder, the more dangerous, and the dirtier the job, the more must he smile and "jolly" about it.

"They had come to France to do a certain piece of work. It was a bloody, dusty, sweaty, unclean, disagreeable one, and they proposed to finish it. . . . We are a people given to discounting futures, and the average American soldier, to put it bluntly, discounted being killed in action. If our Allies, whose fortitude was sustained in a dark hour by the way that our men fought, could have probed what was in the mind of these Americans, they would have found still further reason for faith in our military strength." So declares Major Palmer of General Pershing's staff.

Raymond Fosdick says the character of the American soldier was shown when a Y.M.C.A. secretary asked a large body of _Yanks_ to write on little slips of paper distributed to them what they thought were the three greatest sins in a soldier. When the papers were passed back and examined, it was found that they agreed unanimously upon the first sin. It was cowardice. And almost unanimously upon the second. It was selfishness. And the third was big-headedness.

The _Yank_ is wonderfully free from the sins he hates. Dashing, fearless, willing to die rather than to surrender, unable, as General Bundy said, to understand an order to retreat, he is always a "jollier." It is said one platoon of _Yanks_ went "over the top" wearing tall silk hats with grenades in one hand and carrying pink parasols in the other. This may be only a story of what the _Yanks_ would have done if permitted, but it is true to their nature.

The _Yanks_ have written the noblest chapter of American history. They have honored their fathers and mothers, their churches, the American public school, and the land of Washington and Lincoln. Those who sleep beneath foreign soil have not died in vain.

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DUTY

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, "_Thou must_,"
The youth replies, "I _can_."

WHERE THE FOUR WINDS MEET

There are songs of the north and songs of the south,
And songs of the east and west;
But the songs of the place where the four winds meet
Are the ones that we love the best.

"And where do the four winds meet?" you ask.
The answer is ready at hand--
"Wherever our dear ones chance to be
By air, or by sea, or land."

So the sailor, keeping his midnight watch
'Mid icicles, snow, and sleet,
Can think of a village near Portsmouth town
As the place where the four winds meet.

And mother, perhaps, and sweetheart true
Pray hard for the North Sea Fleet,
And harder still for the boy who's gone
To his place, where the four winds meet.

And the man on guard at the "firing-step,"
'Mid star-shells shimmering down,
Can think of his home--where the four winds meet
In some sheltered English town.

And thoughts may fly to the distant trench,
Whatever its name or "street,"
For "Somewhere in France" seems far less vague
If we add, "where the four winds meet."

And the pilot steers thro' the trackless waste
While the engines throb and beat,
Flouting surprise, with the army's eyes
High up where the four winds meet.

And to those who mourn comes a cheering cry,
Which the angels in heaven repeat,
"Grieve not, brave hearts; we await you here--
_Here_, where the four winds meet."

There are songs of the north and songs of the south,
The east and the west complete;
But here is a song of the place we love,
Which is called, "Where the four winds meet."

GEOFFREY DALRYMPLE NASH.

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THE UNITED STATES MARINES

Our flag's unfurled to every breeze
From dawn to setting sun,
We have fought in every clime or place
Where we could take a gun--
In the snow of far-off northern lands
And in sunny tropic scenes,
You will find us always on the job--
The United States Marines.

THE SOLDIERS WHO GO TO SEA

"If the army or the navy ever gaze on Heaven's scenes,
They will find the streets are guarded by United States marines."

So sing the soldiers who go to sea, commonly called the marines. The Germans after the battles of Belleau Wood and Bouresches called them "devil hounds," and the French named them the "green devils."

An English rhymester wrote to his home paper,

"You must not call them Sammies,
You should not call them Yanks.
And if you call them 'doughboys'
Loud laughter splits their flanks.
You will not call them Buddies,
And when on Kultur's track,
You need not call them forward,
You cannot call them back."

They know too that whenever trouble arises in any part of the world, they are the first to be sent to protect American interests. It is said that many of them believe the chief reason why the United States has a navy is for the purpose of carrying the marines to the points where they are needed. They are aware of the fact that marines may be landed and such landing not be considered an act of war. Therefore they look upon their service as much more important than that of the soldier.

The marine has been everywhere man has gone by land or sea or air, as one of their poets wrote:

"From the hills of Montezuma
To the gates of old Peking
He has heard the shrapnel bursting,
He has heard the Mauser's ping.
He has known Alaskan waters
And the coral roads of Guam,
He has bowed to templed idols
And to sultans made salaam."

"I am more than a sailor, for although I belong to the navy I fight on the land. I am more than a soldier, for I do all that the soldier does and at the same time I belong to the navy and go to sea." Thus the marine proves to himself that he is "it," as the soldiers and sailors would say.

"The marines get aviation, searchlight, wireless telegraph, heliograph, and other drill. They plant mines, put up telegraph and telephone lines in the field, tear down or build up bridges, sling from a ship and set up or land guns as big as 5-inch for their advance base work.

"It is a belief with marines that the corps can do anything. Right in New York City is a marine printing plant with a battery of linotypes and a row of presses. They set their own type, write their own stuff (even to the poetry), draw their own sketches, do their own photography, their own color work--everything. Every man in that plant is a marine, enlisted or commissioned. Every one has seen service somewhere outside his country."

Such a feeling of superiority, however, would soon be laughed down if it were not based upon something more than talk. The marines know this and try in every way to show that they excel the other branches. They are extremely careful of their dress, and their personal appearance, and of their conduct whether on duty or off. They try to sustain the reputation of their branch in every little way as well as in every great one.

As an illustration of this, they are not satisfied with a commonplace mascot. Soldiers and sailors, and marines too, must have a mascot. A cat, a dog, a goat, a parrot, a monkey, a pig, a lion cub, or a bear are among the commonest and most popular of mascots. Therefore the marines would usually disdain any one of these. If any of them should happen to be accepted as a mascot, there would be some wonderful story to explain why it was the most remarkable monkey, goat, or lion cub that ever lived.

A large and hideous snake, a young kangaroo, or an anteater are mascots more to the liking of the marines. They must have something like themselves, exclusive and distinguished. The anteater that one body of marines adopted when they were landed at Vera Cruz proved a very interesting and original mascot, and also that anteaters were not always exactly as they are described in school textbooks, for this anteater disdained to eat ants and greedily devoured anything from the food of the marines that they would give him, or that he could steal--bread, meat, pie, doughnuts, or eggs.

A writer telling about this anteater mascot says he was taught several tricks, one of which was to put out with his forepaws every lighted cigarette dropped near him and then to tear it into little pieces. Heywood Broun, the writer, goes on to say, "The marine who dropped a hundred franc note by mistake just in front of Jimmy says that teaching tricks to anteaters is all foolishness."

And how do they sustain the reputation of their branch in the great things? Here is where soldier, sailor, or marine must prove his superiority, for excelling here means greater service to his country. It would be difficult indeed to give the palm to any branch of the service. They have all endured hardship and met wounds and death with equal gallantry, each striving to outdo the other in devotion and sacrifice.

Secretary Daniels has told the inspiring heroic story of the fighting of the eight thousand marines who in June, 1918, were thrown into the open gap between the advancing Germans and Paris.

Although they were without proper artillery support and too small in numbers for the task, General Pershing in those dark days offered their services to Marshal Foch, saying, "If you have no other troops to use and the gap must be closed and the Germans stopped, they will do it." And they did! But out of the eight thousand, four thousand were missing, wounded, or killed. Read Secretary Daniels' story of this fight, called the battle of Belleau Wood, and be proud that you are an American.

This efficient fighting, building, and landing force of the navy has won imperishable glory in the fulfillment of its latest duties upon the battlefields of France, where the marines, fighting for the time under General Pershing as a part of the victorious American army, have written a story of valor and sacrifice that will live in the brightest annals of the war. With heroism that nothing could daunt, the Marine Corps played a vital rôle in stemming the German rush on Paris, and in later days aided in the beginning of the great offensive, the freeing of Rheims, and participated in the hard fighting in Champagne, which had as its object the throwing back of the Prussian armies in the vicinity of Cambrai and St. Quentin.

With only 8000 men engaged in the fiercest battles, the Marine Corps casualties numbered 69 officers and 1531 enlisted men dead and 78 officers and 2435 enlisted men wounded seriously enough to be officially reported by cablegram, to which number should be added not a few whose wounds did not incapacitate them for further fighting. However, with a casualty list that numbers nearly half the original 8000 men who entered battle, the official reports account for only 57 United States marines who have been captured by the enemy. This includes those who were wounded far in advance of their lines and who fell into the hands of Germans while unable to resist.

Memorial Day shall henceforth have a greater, deeper significance for America, for it was on that day, May 30, 1918, that our country really received its first call to battle--the battle in which American troops had the honor of stopping the German drive on Paris, throwing back the Prussian hordes in attack after attack, and beginning the retreat which lasted until Imperial Germany was beaten to its knees and its emissaries appealing for an armistice under the flag of truce. And to the United States marines, fighting side by side with equally brave and equally courageous men in the American army, to that faithful sea and land force of the navy, fell the honor of taking over the lines where the blow of the Prussian would strike the hardest, the line that was nearest Paris, and where, should a breach occur, all would be lost.

The world knows today that the United States marines held that line; that they blocked the advance that was rolling on toward Paris at a rate of six or seven miles a day; that they met the attack in American fashion and with American heroism; that marines and soldiers of the American army threw back the crack guard divisions of Germany, broke their advance, and then, attacking, drove them back in the beginning of a retreat that was not to end until the "cease firing" signal sounded for the end of the world's greatest war.

It was on the evening of May 30, after a day dedicated to the memory of their comrades who had fallen in the training days and in the Verdun sector, that the 5th and 6th Regiments and the 6th Machine Gun Battalion, United States marines, each received the following orders:--

Advance information official received that this regiment will move at 10 P.M. 30 May by bus to new area. All trains shall be loaded at once and arrangements hastened. Wagons, when loaded, will move to Serans to form train.

All through the night there was fevered activity among the marines. Then, the next morning, the long trains of camions, busses, and trucks, each carrying its full complement of United States marines, went forward on a road which at one place wound within less than ten miles of Paris, toward Meaux and the fighting line.

Through the town of Meaux went the long line of camions and to the village of Montriel-aux-Lions, less than four miles from the rapidly advancing German line. On this trip the camions containing the Americans were the only traffic traveling in the direction of the Germans; everything else was going the other way--refugees, old men and women, small children, riding on every conceivable conveyance, many trudging along the side of the road driving a cow or calf before them, all of them covered with the white dust which the camion caravan was whirling up as it rolled along; along that road only one organization was advancing, the United States marines.

At last, their destination reached early on the morning of June 2, they disembarked, stiff and tired after a journey of more than seventy-two miles, but as they formed their lines and marched onward in the direction of the line they were to hold they were determined and cheerful. That evening the first field message from the Fourth Brigade to Major General Omar Bundy, commanding the 2d Division, went forward:--

Second Battalion, 6th Marines, in line from Le Thiolet through Clarembauts Woods to Triangle to Lucy. Instructed to hold line. First Battalion, 6th marines, going into line from Lucy through Hill 142. Third Battalion in support at La Voie du Châtel, which is also the post command of the 6th Marines. Sixth Machine Gun Battalion distributed at line.

Meanwhile the 5th Regiment was moving into line, machine guns were advancing, and the artillery taking its position. That night the men and officers of the marines slept in the open, many of them in a field that was green with unharvested wheat, awaiting the time when they should be summoned to battle. The next day at 5 o'clock, the afternoon of June 2, began the battle of Château-Thierry, with the Americans holding the line against the most vicious wedge of the German advance.

The advance of the Germans was across a wheat field, driving at Hill 165 and advancing in smooth columns. The United States marines, trained to keen observation upon the rifle range, nearly every one of them wearing a marksman's medal or better, that of the sharpshooter or expert rifleman, did not wait for those gray-clad hordes to advance nearer.

Calmly they set their sights and aimed with the same precision that they had shown upon the rifle ranges at Paris Island, Mare Island, and Quantico. Incessantly their rifles cracked, and with their fire came the support of the artillery. The machine-gun fire, incessant also, began to make its inroads upon the advancing forces. Closer and closer the shrapnel burst to its targets. Caught in a seething wave of machine-gun fire, of scattering shrapnel, of accurate rifle fire, the Germans found themselves in a position in which further advance could only mean absolute suicide. The lines hesitated. They stopped. They broke for cover, while the marines raked the woods and ravines in which they had taken refuge with machine gun and rifle to prevent them making another attempt to advance by infiltrating through.

Above, a French airplane was checking up on the artillery fire. Surprised by the fact that men should deliberately set their sights, adjust their range, and then fire deliberately at an advancing foe, each man picking his target, instead of firing merely in the direction of the enemy, the aviator signaled below "Bravo!" In the rear that word was echoed again and again. The German drive on Paris had been stopped.

For the next few days the fighting took on the character of pushing forth outposts and determining the strength of the enemy. Now, the fighting had changed. The Germans, mystified that they should have run against a stone wall of defense just when they believed that their advance would be easiest, had halted, amazed; then prepared to defend the positions they had won with all the stubbornness possible. In the black recesses of Belleau Wood the Germans had established nest after nest of machine guns. There in the jungle of matted underbrush, of vines, of heavy foliage, they had placed themselves in positions they believed impregnable. And this meant that unless they could be routed, unless they could be thrown back, the breaking of the attack of June 2 would mean nothing. There would come another drive and another. The battle of Château-Thierry was therefore not won and could not be won until Belleau Wood had been cleared of the enemy.

It was June 6 that the attack of the American troops began against that wood and its adjacent surroundings, with the wood itself and the towns of Torcy and Bouresches forming the objectives. At 5 o'clock the attack came, and there began the tremendous sacrifices which the Marine Corps gladly suffered that the German fighters might be thrown back.

The marines fought strictly according to American methods--a rush, a halt, a rush again, in four-wave formation, the rear waves taking over the work of those who had fallen before them, passing over the bodies of their dead comrades and plunging ahead, until they, too, should be torn to bits. But behind those waves were more waves and the attack went on.

"Men fell like flies"; the expression is that of an officer writing from the field. Companies that had entered the battle 250 strong dwindled to fifty and sixty, with a sergeant in command; but the attack did not falter. At 9:45 o'clock that night Bouresches was taken by Lieutenant James F. Robertson and twenty odd men of his platoon; these soon were joined by two reënforcing platoons. Then came the enemy counter-attacks, but the marines held.

In Belleau Wood the fighting had been literally from trees to tree, stronghold to stronghold; and it was a fight which must last for weeks before its accomplishment in victory. Belleau Wood was a jungle, its every rocky formation forming a German machine-gun nest, almost impossible to reach by artillery or grenade fire. There was only one way to wipe out these nests--by the bayonet. And by this method they were wiped out, for United States marines, bare chested, shouted their battle cry of "E-e-e-e-e y-a-a-h-h-h-yip!" charged straight into the murderous fire from those guns, and won!

Out of the number that charged, in more than one instance, only one would reach the stronghold. There, with his bayonet as his only weapon, he would either kill or capture the defenders of the nest, and then swinging the gun about in its position, turn it against the remaining German positions in the forest. Such was the character of the fighting in Belleau Wood, fighting which continued until July 6, when after a short relief the invincible Americans finally were taken back to the rest billet for recuperation.

In all the history of the Marine Corps there is no such battle as that one in Belleau Wood. Fighting day and night without relief, without sleep, often without water, and for days without hot rations, the marines met and defeated the best divisions that Germany could throw into the line.

The heroism and doggedness of that battle are unparalleled. Time after time officers seeing their lines cut to pieces, seeing their men so dog tired that they even fell asleep under shell fire, hearing their wounded calling for the water that they were unable to supply, seeing men fight on after they had been wounded and until they dropped unconscious; time after time officers seeing these things, believing that the very limit of human endurance had been reached, would send back messages to their post command that their men were exhausted. But in answer to this would come the word that the lines must hold, and, if possible, those lines must attack. And the lines obeyed. Without water, without food, without rest, they went forward--and forward every time to victory. Companies had been so torn and lacerated by losses that they were hardly platoons, but they held their lines and advanced them. In more than one case companies lost every officer, leaving a sergeant and sometimes a corporal to command, and the advance continued.

After thirteen days in this inferno of fire a captured German officer told with his dying breath of a fresh division of Germans that was about to be thrown into the battle to attempt to wrest from the marines that part of the wood they had gained. The marines, who for days had been fighting only on their sheer nerve, who had been worn out from nights of sleeplessness, from lack of rations, from terrific shell and machine-gun fire, straightened their lines and prepared for the attack. It came--as the dying German officer had predicted.

At 2 o'clock on the morning of June 13 it was launched by the Germans along the whole front. Without regard for men, the enemy hurled his forces against Bouresches and the Bois de Belleau, and sought to win back what had been taken from Germany by the Americans. The orders were that these positions must be taken at all costs; that the utmost losses in men must be endured that the Bois de Belleau and Bouresches might fall again into German hands. But the depleted lines of the marines held; the men who had fought on their nerve alone for days once more showed the mettle of which they were made. With their backs to the trees and bowlders of the Bois de Belleau, with their sole shelter the scattered ruins of Bouresches, the thinning lines of the marines repelled the attack and crashed back the new division which had sought to wrest the position from them.

And so it went. Day after day, night after night, while time after time messages like the following traveled to the post command:--

Losses heavy. Difficult to get runners through. Some have never returned. Morale excellent, but troops about all in. Men exhausted.

Exhausted, but holding on. And they continued to hold on in spite of every difficulty. Advancing their lines slowly day by day, the marines finally prepared their positions to such an extent that the last rush for the possession of the wood could be made. Then, on June 24, following a tremendous barrage, the struggle began.

The barrage literally tore the woods to pieces, but even its immensity could not wipe out all the nests that remained, the emplacements that were behind almost every clump of bushes, every jagged, rough group of bowlders. But those that remained were wiped out by the American method of the rush and the bayonet, and in the days that followed every foot of Belleau Wood was cleared of the enemy and held by the frayed lines of the Americans.

It was, therefore, with the feeling of work well done that the depleted lines of the marines were relieved in July, that they might be filled with replacements and made ready for the grand offensive in the vicinity of Soissons, July 18. And in recognition of their sacrifice and bravery this praise was forthcoming from the French:--

Army Headquarters, June 30, 1918.

In view of the brilliant conduct of the Fourth Brigade of the Second United States Division, which in a spirited fight took Bouresches and the important strong point of Bois de Belleau, stubbornly defended by a large enemy force, the General commanding the Sixth Army orders that henceforth, in all official papers, the Bois de Belleau shall be named "Bois de la Brigade de Marine."

DIVISION GENERAL DEGOUTTE,
Commanding Sixth Army.

On July 18 the marines were again called into action in the vicinity of Soissons, near Tigny and Vierzy. In the face of a murderous fire from concentrated machine guns, which contested every foot of their advance, the United States marines moved forward until the severity of their casualties necessitated that they dig in and hold the positions they had gained. Here, again, their valor called forth official praise.

Then came the battle for the St. Mihiel salient. On the night of Sept. 11 the 2d Division took over a line running from Remenauville to Limey, and on the night of Sept. 14 and the morning of Sept. 15 attacked, with two days' objectives ahead of them. Overcoming the enemy resistance, they romped through to the Rupt de Mad, a small river, crossed it on stone bridges, occupied Thiacourt, the first day's objective, scaled the heights just beyond it, pushed on to a line running from the Zammes-Joulney Ridges to the Binvaux Forest, and there rested, with the second day's objectives occupied by 2:50 o'clock of the first day. The casualties of the division were about 1000, of which 134 were killed. Of these, about half were marines. The captures in which the marines participated were 80 German officers, 3200 men, ninety-odd cannon, and vast stores.

But even further honors were to befall the fighting, landing, and building force, of which the navy is justly proud. In the early part of October it became necessary for the Allies to capture the bald, jagged ridge twenty miles due east of Rheims, known as Blanc Mont Ridge. Here the armies of Germany and the Allies had clashed more than once, and attempt after attempt had been made to wrest it from German hands. It was a keystone of the German defense, the fall of which would have a far-reaching effect upon the enemy armies. To the glory of the United States marines, let it be said, that they were again a part of that splendid 2d Division which swept forward in the attack which freed Blanc Mont Ridge from German hands, pushed its way down the slopes, and occupied the level ground just beyond, thus assuring a victory, the full import of which can best be judged by the order of General Lejeune, following the battle:--

France, Oct. 11, 1918.

Officers and Men of the 2d Division:--

It is beyond my power of expression to describe fitly my admiration for your heroism. You attacked magnificently and you seized Blanc Mont Ridge, the keystone of the arch constituting the enemy's main position. You advanced beyond the ridge, breaking the enemy's lines, and you held the ground gained with a tenacity which is unsurpassed in the annals of war.

As a direct result of your victory, the German armies east and west of Rheims are in full retreat, and by drawing on yourselves several German divisions from other parts of the front you greatly assisted the victorious advance of the Allied armies between Cambrai and St. Quentin.

Your heroism and the heroism of our comrades who died on the battlefield will live in history forever, and will be emulated by the young men of our country for generations to come.

To be able to say when this war is finished, "I belonged to the 2d Division; I fought with it at the battle of Blanc Mont Ridge," will be the highest honor that can come to any man.

JOHN A. LEJEUNE,
Major General, United States Marine Corps, Commanding.

Thus it is that the United States marines have fulfilled the glorious traditions of their corps in this their latest duty as the "soldiers who go to sea." Their sharpshooting--and in one regiment 93 per cent of the men wear the medal of a marksman, a sharpshooter, or an expert rifleman--has amazed soldiers of European armies, accustomed merely to shooting in the general direction of the enemy. Under the fiercest fire they have calmly adjusted their sights, aimed for their man, and killed him, and in bayonet attacks their advance on machine-gun nests has been irresistible.

In the official citation lists more than one American marine is credited with taking an enemy machine gun single handed, bayoneting its crew and then turning the gun against the foe. In one battle alone, that of Belleau Wood, the citation lists bear the names of fully 500 United States marines who so distinguished themselves in battle as to call forth the official commendation of their superior officers.

More than faithful in every emergency, accepting hardships with admirable morale, proud of the honor of taking their place as shock troops for the American legions, they have fulfilled every glorious tradition of their corps, and they have given to the world a list of heroes whose names will go down to all history.

WHEN THE TIDE TURNED

THE AMERICAN ATTACK AT CHÂTEAU-THIERRY AND BELLEAU WOOD IN THE FIRST WEEK OF JUNE, 1918

BY OTTO H. KAHN

AN ADDRESS AT THE UNITED WAR WORK CAMPAIGN MEETING OF THE BOSTON ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION, NOVEMBER 12, 1918

WHY THE TIDE WAS FATED TO TURN

These are soul-stirring days. To live through them is a glory and a solemn joy. The words of the poet resound in our hearts: "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world."

Events have shaped themselves in accordance with the eternal law. Once again the fundamental lesson of all history is borne in upon the world, that evil--though it may seem to triumph for a while--carries within it the seed of its own dissolution. Once again it is revealed to us that the God-inspired soul of man is unconquerable and that the power, however formidable, which challenges it is doomed to go down in defeat.

A righteous cause will not only stand unshaken through trials and discomfiture, but it will draw strength from the very setbacks which it may suffer. A wrongful cause can only stand as long as it is buoyed up by success.

The German people were sustained by a sheer obsession akin to the old-time belief in the potent spell of "the black arts" that their military masters were invulnerable and invincible, that by some power--good or evil, they did not care which--they had been made so, and that the world was bound to fall before them.

The nation was immensely strong only as long as that obsession remained unshaken. With its destruction by a series of defeats which were incapable of being explained as "strategic retreats," their morale crumbled and finally collapsed, because it was not sustained, as that of the Allies was sustained in the darkest days of the war, by the faith that they were fighting for all that men hold most sacred.

To those who were acquainted with German mentality and psychology, it had been manifest all along that when the end foreordained did come, it would come with catastrophic suddenness.

WHERE THE TIDE TURNED

It is the general impression that the tide of victory set in with Marshal Foch's splendid movement against the German flank on July 18th. That movement, it is true, started the irresistible sweep of the wave which was destined to engulf and destroy the hideous power of Prussianism. But the tide which gathered and drove forward the waters out of which that wave arose, had turned before. It turned with and through the supreme valor of our marines and other American troops in the _first_ battle at Château-Thierry and at Belleau Wood, _in the first week of June_.

The American force engaged was small, measured by the standard of numbers to which we have become accustomed in this war, but the story of their fighting will remain immortal and in its psychological and strategic consequences the action will take rank, I believe, among the decisive battles of the war.

I am not speaking from hearsay. I was in France during the week preceding that battle, the most anxious and gloomy period, probably, of the entire war. What I am about to relate is based either on authoritative information gathered on the spot, or on my own observations. In telling it, nothing is farther from my thoughts than to wish to take away one tittle from the immortal glory which belongs to the Allied armies, nor from the undying gratitude which we owe to the nations who for four heart-breaking years, with superb heroism, fought the battle of civilization--our battle from the very beginning, no less than theirs--and bore untold sacrifices with never faltering spirit.

JUST BEFORE THE TIDE TURNED

On the 27th of last May the Germans broke through the French position at the Chemin des Dames, a position which had been considered by the Allies as almost impregnable. They overthrew the French as they had overthrown the British two months earlier. Day by day they came nearer to Paris, until only thirty-nine miles separated them from their goal. A few days more at the same rate of advance, and Paris was within range of the German guns of terrific destructive power. Paris, the nerve center of the French railroad system and the seat of many French war industries, not only, but the very heart of France, far more to the French people in its meaning and traditions than merely the capital of the country; Paris in imminent danger of ruthless bombardment like Rheims, in possible danger even of conquest by the brutal invader, drunk with lust and with victory! As one Frenchman expressed it to me: "We felt in our faces the very breath of the approaching beast."

And whilst the Hunnish hordes came nearer and nearer, and the very roar of the battle could be dimly and ominously heard from time to time in Paris, there were air raids over the city practically every night, and the shells from the long-range monster guns installed some sixty or seventy miles distant fell on its houses, places, and streets almost every day.

They were not afraid, these superb men and women of France. They do not know the meaning of fear in defense of their beloved soil and their sacred ideals. There was no outward manifestation even of excitement or apprehension. Calmly and resolutely they faced what destiny might bring. But there was deep gloom in their hearts and dire forebodings.

They had fought and dared and suffered and sacrificed for well-nigh four years. They had buried a million of their sons, brothers, and fathers. They were bleeding from a million wounds and more. They said: "We will fight on to our last drop of blood, but alas! our physical strength is ebbing. The enemy is more numerous by far than we. Where can we look for aid? The British have just suffered grave defeat. The Italians have their own soil to defend after the disaster of last autumn. Our troops are in retreat. The Americans are not ready and they are untried as yet in the fierce ordeal of modern warfare. The Germans know well that in three months or six months the Americans will be ready and strong in numbers. That is why they are throwing every ounce of their formidable power against us _now_. The Hun is at the gate _now_. Immeasurable consequences are at stake _now_. It is a question of days, not of weeks or months. Where can we look for aid _now_?"

And out of their nooks and corners and hiding places crawled forth the slimy brood of the Bolshevik-Socialists, of the Boloists, Caillauxists, and pacifists, and they hissed into the ears of the people, "Make peace! Victory has become impossible. Why go on shedding rivers of blood uselessly? The Germans will give you an honorable, even a generous peace. Save Paris! Make peace!"

The holy wrath of France crushed those serpents whenever their heads became visible. Clemenceau, the embodiment of the dauntless spirit of France, stood forth the very soul of patriotic ardor and indomitable courage. But the serpents were there, crawling hidden in the grass, ever hissing, "Make peace!"

And then, suddenly out of the gloom flashed the lightning of a new sword, sharp and mighty, a sword which had never been drawn except for freedom, a sword which had never known defeat--the sword of America!

THE TURNING OF THE TIDE

A division of marines and other American troops were rushed to the front as a desperate measure to try and stop a gap where flesh and blood, even when animated by French heroism, seemed incapable of further resistance. They came in trucks, in cattle cars, by any conceivable kind of conveyance, crowded together like sardines. They had had little food, and less sleep, for days.

When they arrived, the situation had become such that the French command advised, indeed ordered, them to retire. But they and their brave general would not hear of it. They disembarked almost upon the field of battle and rushed forward, with little care for orthodox battle order, without awaiting the arrival of their artillery, which had been unable to keep up with their rapid passage to that front.

They stormed ahead, right through the midst of a retreating French division, yelling like wild Indians, ardent, young, irresistible in their fury of battle. Some of the Frenchmen called out a well-meant warning: "Don't go in this direction. There are the boches with machine guns." They shouted back:

"That's where we want to go. That's where we have come three thousand miles to go." And they did go, into the very teeth of the deadly machine guns. In defiance of all precedent they stormed, with rifle and bayonet in frontal attack, against massed machine guns.

They threw themselves upon the victory-flushed Huns to whom this unconventional kind of fierce onset came as a complete and disconcerting surprise. They fought like demons, with utterly reckless bravery. They paid the price, alas! in heavy losses, but for what they paid they took compensation in over-full measure.

They formed of themselves a spearhead at the point nearest Paris, against which the enemy's onslaught shattered itself and broke. They stopped the Hun, they beat him back, they broke the spell of his advance. They started victory on its march.

A new and unspent and mighty force had come into the fray. And the Hun knew it to his cost and the French knew it to their unbounded joy. The French turned. Side by side the Americans and the French stood, and on that part of the front the Germans never advanced another inch from that day. They held for a while, and then set in the beginning of the great defeat.

I was in Paris when the news of the American achievement reached the population. They knew full well what it meant. The danger was still present, but the crisis was over. The boche could not break through. He could and would be stopped and ultimately thrown back, out of France, out of Belgium, across the Rhine and beyond!

The aid for which the sorely beset people of France had been praying, had arrived. The Americans had come, young, strong, daring, eager to fight, capable of standing up against and stopping and beating back German shock troops specially selected and trained, and spurred on by the belief in their own irresistibility and the exhaustion of their opponents. The full wave of the hideous instruments of warfare which the devilish ingenuity of the Germans had invented, liquid fire, monstrous shells, various kinds of gases including the horrible mustard gas, had struck the Americans squarely and fully, and they had stood and fought on and won.

The French, so calm in their trials, so restrained in their own victories, gave full vent to their joy and enthusiasm at the splendid fighting and success of the Americans. The talk of them was everywhere in Paris. Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers already in France, thousands coming upon every steamer, millions more to come if needed--and they had shown the great stuff they were made of! All gloom vanished, overnight. The full magnificence of the French fighting morale shone out again--both behind the lines and at the front. "Ils ne passeront pas!" "On les aura." [1]

And the Bolshevik-Socialists, Boloists, weak-kneed pacifists, and that whole noisome tribe slunk back into their holes and corners and hiding places, and never emerged again.

And, as the people of Paris and the poilus at the front correctly interpreted the meaning of that battle in those early days of June, so did the supreme military genius of Marshal Foch interpret it. He knew what the new great fighting force could do which had come under his orders, and he knew what he meant to do and could do with it. It is an eloquent fact that when six weeks later he struck his great master stroke which was to lead ultimately to the utter defeat and collapse of the enemy, American troops formed the larger portion of an attacking force which, being thrown against a particularly vital position, was meant to deal and did deal the most staggering blow to the enemy; and other American troops were allotted the place which from the paramount responsibility attaching to it, may be termed the place of honor, in the center of the line, in immediate defense of the approaches to Paris.

They made good there--officers and men alike. They made good everywhere, from Cantigny to Sedan. They made good on land, on the seas, and in the air; worthy comrades of the war-seasoned heroes of France and Great Britain, worthy defenders of American honor, eager artisans of American glory. When for the first time the American army went into action as a separate unit under the direct command of its great chief, General Pershing, Marshal Foch allotted them ten days for the accomplishment of the task set for them, i.e., the ejection of the German army from the strongly fortified St. Mihiel salient, which the enemy had held for four years. They did it in thirty hours, and made a complete and perfect job of it.

I have had the privilege of seeing these splendid boys of ours, in all situations and circumstances, from their camps in America to the front in France--the boys and their equally splendid leaders. The sacred inspiration of what I have thus seen will stay with me to my last day.

I confess I find it hard to speak of them without a catch in my throat and moisture in my eyes. I see them before me now in the fair land of France--brave, strong, ardent; keen and quick-witted; kindly and clean and modest and wholly free from boasting; good-humored and good-natured; willingly submissive to unaccustomed discipline; uncomplainingly enduring all manner of hardships and discomforts; utterly contemptuous of danger, daring to a fault, holding life cheap for the honor and glory of America. What true American can think of them or picture them without having his heart overflow with grateful and affectionate pride?

As I observed our army "over there," I felt that in them, in the mass of them, representing as they do all sections and callings of America, there had returned the ancient spirit of knighthood. I measure my words. I am not exaggerating. If I had to find one single word with which to characterize our boys, I should select the adjective "knightly."

A French officer who commanded a body of French troops, fighting fiercely and almost hopelessly in Belleau Wood near Château-Thierry (since then officially designated by the French Government as the Wood of the Marine Brigade), told me that when they had arrived almost at the point of total exhaustion, suddenly the Americans appeared rushing to the rescue. One of the American officers hurried up to him, saluted and said in execrably pronounced French just six words: "Vous--fatigués, vous--partir, notre job." "You--tired, you--get away, our job." And right nobly did they do their job!

[1] "They shall not pass!" "We will get them."

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Almost every soldier who goes into battle leaves a letter to be read in the event of his death. Sturgis ("Spud") Pishon, a former famous college athlete, serving in the American air forces in Italy, before his fatal flight wrote this letter, so full of the strength and simplicity of a great soldier:

"What little I have to give to my country I give without reservation. If there ever was a righteous cause it is ours, and I am proud to have worked and died for it.

"Pray God this war will be over soon and that it will be the last war.

"I leave you with a smile on my lips and a heart full of love for you all. God bless you and keep you."

STURGIS.

A BOY OF PERUGIA

In the year 1500, Raphael was a boy of eighteen in Perugia working and studying with the master painter Perugino. Did the city itself, free on its hill top, looking afar over undulating mountains and great valleys, implant in the sensitive soul of Raphael a love of beauty and a vision that made him become one of the greatest painters of the world? Perugia can never be forgotten, for the boy Raphael once lived, worked, and studied there.

In the year 1915 Enzo Valentini was a boy of eighteen in Perugia. He was a high school boy and his father was mayor of the city. One of his teachers says he was an unusually brilliant scholar, with remarkable artistic gifts. Did the city and its beautiful surroundings open his soul to the vision of love and tenderness for his "little mother" and of the duty that called him while but a boy in the high school to serve and, if need be, die for his country?

When Italy entered the war, he gave up his studies, dropped his pen and his brushes, volunteered as a private, and was soon fighting with his countrymen in the Alps.

Certainly his soul was responsive to beauty in nature; for in the midst of war and war's alarms, he found peace of spirit in the wonderful Alpine country. He writes, "The longer I am here, the more I love the mountains. The spell they weave does not come so quickly as that of the sea, but I think it is deeper and more enduring. Every passing moment, every cloud, every morning mist clothes the mountains in a beauty so great that even the coarsest of our brave soldiers stop to admire it. It may be for only an instant but this is enough to prove that the soul never forgets its heavenly birth even though it be the soul of an uneducated peasant, imprisoned in the roughest shell. The days pass one after another calmly, serenely. It seems as if the autumn ought never to end. The divine and solemn peace of the nights is beyond the power of words to express, especially now that the moon is shedding its magic silver over all. There are hours in the day when everything is so filled and covered with light and when the silence is so impressive that at moments the light seems to be gone letting the silence blaze forth in the wonderful harmony of nature."

Enzo Valentini loved nature, loved his native land, and loved his mother. She understood him and knew that because of his love for her he was willing to die for Italy and the mothers of Italy. Shortly before his death he wrote her this beautiful letter:--

"Little mother, in a very few days I am leaving for the front lines. For your dear sake I am writing this farewell which you will read only if I am killed. Let it be my good-by to father, to my brothers, and to all those in the world who cared for me.

"My heart in its love and gratitude to you has always brought its holiest thoughts to you; and now it is to you that I make known my last wishes.

"Many have loved me. To each of them give some little thing of mine in remembrance of me, after you have laid aside all those that you care for most. I wish that all who have loved me should possess something of the friend that is gone to rise like a flame above the clouds, above the flesh, into the sun, into the very soul of the universe.

"Try, if you can, not to weep for me too much. Believe that even though I do not come back to you, I am not dead. My body, the less important part of me, suffers and dies; but not I myself--I, the soul, cannot die, because I come from God and must return to God. I was made for happiness and through suffering I must return to the everlasting happiness. If I have been for a short time a prisoner in the body, I am not the less eternal. My death is freedom, the beginning of the real life, the return to the Infinite.

"Therefore do not mourn for me. If you consider the immortal beauty of the ideals for which my soul is willingly sacrificing my body, you will not mourn. But if your mother heart must weep, let the tears flow; a mother's tears are forever sacred. God will take account of them; they will be the stars of a crown.

"Be strong, little mother. From the great beyond, your son says farewell to you, to father, to brothers, to all who have loved him--your son, who has given his body in the fight against those who would put out the light of the world."

So read the "little mother" of Enzo Valentini after the assault upon Sano di Mezzodi. When his platoon charged he was the first to dash from the trench giving courage to all who hesitated. Together they made the mountains ring with the old Italian war cry, "Savoia! Italia!"

Enzo Valentini fell pierced by five pieces of shrapnel. They carried him back to a grotto where the surgeons dressed his wounds.

A comrade says, "We laid him down on the litter in the grotto, among the great rocks, under the dark vault of the sky, his face upturned to the stars. He was exhausted, and asked for a drink, and fainted. Then they carried him to the hospital and I never saw him again. I have been told they carried him down Mount Mesola to the side of the little lake he loved so well, 'his little lake,' and that he sleeps there in death. But for his comrades he is still living in the glory of his youth, there on the Alps, waving his cap with an edelweiss in it, and crying, 'Savoia! Italia!'"

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Wild wind! what do you bear--
A song of the men who fought and fell,
A tale of the strong to do and dare?
--Aye, and a tolling bell!

REDEEMED ITALY

Italy, since 1860 at least, has cherished the dream that sometime all European territory with Italian-speaking inhabitants would be united under Italian government. When the World War began Italy was supposed to be an ally of Germany and Austria. She had agreed to fight with them in case they were attacked--in a defensive war.