''And they thought we wouldn't fight'' by Floyd Phillips Gibbons (smart books to read .txt) 📕

was carried out by the German 36th Division. On the night of May 30th, at a point where the Marne looped northward eight miles to the east of Château-Thierry, the enemy succeeded in putting a few men across the river.

Along the south bank of the river at that place, the Paris-Châlons ran through a number of deep cuts and one tunnel. The enemy took shelter in these natural protections. They suffered serious losses from the Allied artillery which also destroyed some of their pontoons across the river, but in spite of this, the Germans succeeded in re-enforcing the units on the south bank to the strength of about a battalion.

Almost at the same time, the French defenders at this place received re-enforcements from the Americans. Units of the 3rd United States Regular Division and the 28th U. S. Division, comprised largely of Pennsylvania National Guardsmen, were rushed forward from training areas, miles back of the line, where they were engaged in fitting themselves for line duty. These incompletely trained American units abandoned their bayonet-stabbing of gunny-sacks and make-believe warfare to rush forward into the real thing.

On June 2nd, these Americans, under command of French officers, began the counter attack to sweep the Germans back from the south bank. By that time the enemy had succeeded in putting twenty-two light bridges across the Marne and had established a strong bridgehead position with a number of machine guns and a strong force of men in the railway station on the south bank of the river opposite Jaulgonne.

This position was attacked frontally by the Americans and French. Our novices in battle were guilty of numerous so-called strategical blunders, but in the main purpose of killing the enemy, they proved irresistible. The Germans broke and ran. At the same time, the French artillery lowered a terrific barrage on the bridges crossing the river, with the result that many of the fleeing enemy were killed and more drowned. Only thirty or forty escaped by swimming. One hundred of them threw down their arms and surrendered. The remainder of the battalion was wiped out. At the close of the engagement the Americans and the French were in full command of the south bank.

But it was in Château-Thierry itself that the Germans made their most determined effort to cross the river and get a footing on the south bank, and it was there, again, that their efforts were frustrated by our forces. On May 31st, American machine gun units, then in training seventy-five kilometres south of the Marne, were hurriedly bundled into motor lorries and rushed northward into Château-Thierry.

The Germans were advancing their patrols into the north side of the city. They were pouring down the streets in large numbers, with the evident purpose of crossing the bridges and establishing themselves on the south bank.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon of May 31st that those American machine gunners got their first glimpse of real war. That night while the German artillery raked the south bank of the river with high explosive shells, those Americans, shouldering their machine guns, marched into the city and took up defensive positions on the south bank of the river.

During the night many houses were turned into ruins. Shells striking the railroad station had caused it to burn. In the red glare our men saw the houses about them collapse under clouds of dust and débris. Under cover of darkness the Germans filtered through the streets on the north side of the river. The American machine gunners went into position in the windows of houses on the south bank and in gardens between the houses, and from these positions it was possible to command all of the bridge approaches and streets leading to the river on the opposite side.

During the night, Lieutenant John T. Bissell, a young Pittsburgher but recently graduated from West Point, started across one of the bridges and reached the north bank with a squad of a dozen men and two machine guns. This little unit went into position in a place commanding the forked highways which converged not far from the northern approach of the iron bridge crossing the river. It was this unit's function to prevent the enemy advance from this direction. The unit was separated from its comrades on the south bank by the river and about two hundred yards. In spite of the fact that the enemy artillery intensified its shelling of the south bank, the American machine gunners remained at their posts without firing and played a waiting game.

With the coming of dawn the Germans began to make their rushes for the bridges. Small compact forces would dart forward carrying light machine guns and ammunition with them. They encountered a terrific burst of American fire and wilted in front of it. Those that survived crawled back to the shelter of protecting walls, where they were re-enforced with fresh units, and again the massed formations charged down the streets toward the bridges. The slaughter of Germans increased until the approaches were dotted with bodies of the enemy slain.

On June 1st, the Germans having consolidated positions on the hills commanding the city from the north, they directed a terrific artillery and machine gun fire into our exposed positions on the south bank, as well as the small posts still held on the north bank by Lieutenant Bissell and his machine gunners. Although the position held by the little American group had long been considered untenable, the members of it stuck it out until nightfall, when they received orders to retire to the south bank. At the same time, French colonials which had held a position throughout the day on the north bank on the edge of the town, withdrew in accordance with the same plan. The retirement of both parties was covered by our machine gunners on the south bank, who poured a hot fire into the evacuated areas as the Germans began occupying them.

By 10:30 that night the completion of the movement was signalised by a terrific explosion, as the French colonials blew up one of the stone bridges over which they had withdrawn. But the destruction of the bridge had cut off the little band of Americans and left them almost surrounded by the enemy on the north bank of the river, which was now becoming strongly populated by the enemy. Through the darkness could be heard the sound of shuffling, hobnailed boots, and even above the crack of the guns there came the weird swish of the grey coats as they pushed forward in mass formations.

The little party of thirteen Americans dismantled their guns and, with each man carrying his allotted piece, they began working their way along the river bank toward the main bridge, where they discovered that the enemy was almost upon them. They immediately went into position behind the stone parapet on the very brink of the river, and, although in constant danger from the American fire that poured out from the south bank, they poured streams of lead point-blank into the advancing German ranks.

The Americans on the south bank were not aware of the plight of the little party on the north bank. In spite of their losses, the Germans continued their grewsome rushes toward the approaches of the iron bridge across which our machine gunners were pouring a devastating fire. Lieutenant Bissell and his men made one effort to cross the bridge, but were forced to crawl back to shelter on the north bank, carrying with them three of their wounded. They found themselves between a cross-fire. Then Bissell, alone, approached as near as he dared, and the first intimation that the Americans on the south bank had of the fact that Americans were in front of them was when Lieutenant Cobey heard Bissell's voice calling his name. A cease fire order was immediately given and Bissell and his men rushed across the bridge, carrying their wounded with them.

On the following day the Germans were in occupation of all the houses facing the north bank of the river, and could be seen from time to time darting from one shelter to another. Throughout the day their artillery maintained a terrific downpour of shells on the positions held by our men on the south bank. So intense was the rifle fire and activity of snipers, that it meant death to appear in the open. The Americans manned their guns throughout the day, but refrained from indulging in machine gun fire because it was not desired to reveal the locations of the guns. Nightfall approached with a quiet that was deadly ominous of impending events.

At nine o'clock the enemy formations lunged forward to the attack. Their dense masses charged down the streets leading toward the river. They sang as they advanced. The orders, as revealed in documents captured later, came straight from the high command and demanded the acquisition of a foothold on the south bank at all costs. They paid the costs, but never reached the south bank.

The American machine gun fire was withering. Time after time, in the frequent rushes throughout the night, the remnants of enemy masses would reach sometimes as far as the centre of the big bridge, but none of them succeeded in reaching the south bank. The bridge became carpeted with German dead and wounded. They lay thick in the open streets near the approaches. By morning their dead were piled high on the bridge and subsequent rushes endeavoured to advance over the bodies of their fallen comrades. In this battle of the bridges and the streets, our men showed a courage and determination which aroused the admiration of the French officers, who were aware by this time that forty-eight hours before these same American soldiers had seen battle for the first time.

Our machine gunners turned the northern bank of the river into a No Man's Land. Their vigilance was unrelenting and every enemy attempt to elude it met with disaster. There were serious American casualties during that terrific fire, but they were nothing in comparison with the thousand or more German dead that dotted the streets and clogged the runways of the big bridge in piles. The last night of the fight enormous charges of explosive were placed beneath the bridge and discharged.

The bridge was destroyed. High into the air were blown bits of stone, steel, timber, débris, wreckage and the bodies of German dead, all to fall back into the river and go bobbing up and down in the waters of the Marne.

Thus did the Americans save the day at Château-Thierry, but it became immediately necessary for the French high command to call upon our young forces for another great effort. In response to this call, the Second United States Division, including one brigade of the United States Marines, the 5th and 6th Regiments, started for the front. The division was then occupying support positions in the vicinity of Gisors behind the Picardy line. At four o'clock on the morning of May 31st the Marine brigade and regiments of United States infantry, the 9th and the 23rd Regulars, boarded camions, twenty to thirty men and their equipment in each vehicle.

They were bound eastward to the valley of the Marne. The road took them through the string of pretty villages fifteen miles to the north of Paris. The trucks loaded with United States troops soon became part of the endless traffic of war that was pouring northward and eastward toward the raging front. Our men soon became coated with the dust of the road. The French people in the villages through which they passed at top speed cheered them and threw flowers into the lorries.

Between Meaux and Château-Thierry, where the road wound along the Marne, our men encountered long trains of French refugees, weary mothers carrying hungry babies at the breast, farm wagons loaded with household belongings, usually surmounted by feather mattresses